


The Path of Nevermore

by Plainxte



Series: The Path of Nevermore [1]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst, Dragons, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memories, Multi, Mutual Pining, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Language, Pining, RPF, Songfic, Sort Of, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2020-12-28 14:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21137882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plainxte/pseuds/Plainxte
Summary: This is a story of small moments, and a story about stories, in different points in time. It's a love story, too, of a kind.*Freddie got up, shrugged, adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, brushed non-existent dust away from his immaculate trousers, and started walking, confident that Roger would follow him.Roger was left staring at his back. What on earth had just almost happened? Had he just almost – almost kissed his best friend? And had it seemed as though he might have wanted to kiss him back? And in a public place, too – in broad daylight – in the park? He froze in horror. What had come over them?





	1. Holland Park, London, 1969 (Late Summer)

**Author's Note:**

> I think there will be nine parts to this in all. It's a love story, of sorts, of course. I will try to stick to the timeline, but I'm sure I'll make mistakes along the way. (That I can promise!) 
> 
> This is obviously just my imagination. No offense meant. Please do leave me a comment if you at all feel like it! Or come shout at me in the comments!

_(My Fairy King)_

*

"You're late," Roger said, not bothering to open his eyes. The sun was warming his face pleasantly, and he was feeling sleepy and content, sprawled out on a park bench on a summer afternoon. He had heard the footsteps coming nearer – something in the rhythm of them was familiar, somehow – and coming to a halt next to him. It was a safe enough bet to make a guess at the person now standing by his side.

Freddie huffed. "No such thing. You must have lost track of time, dear."

"Yeah, right," Roger laughed, easily. It wasn't as if he was in a hurry, and he was mostly just happy that Freddie had finally shown up. Happy to have him here, and looking forward to spending the day with him. "Sit down, will you?" he said, cracking open his eyes just enough to take a peek at Fred.

He looked as though his lateness was probably at least partly because his outfit had taken some very particular care to assemble. The white trousers looked freshly pressed, and the equally white shirt had its top two buttons left undone just _so_. The red belt around his hips was arranged at a very careful angle, designed to look just the right amount of casual. The satchel bag slung on one shoulder perhaps detracted a tiny bit from the whole, but he looked beautiful, and a bit self-conscious. His dark hair was curling a little, and he was looking down at Roger, a hint of a smile curving his lips; there was no one quite like Freddie.

And, to be fair, expecting Freddie to be on time was always about as useful as expecting that the sun was going to rise from the west today. Roger was used to it, and didn't really mind anyway, but he couldn't help teasing Freddie a bit by making a point of it. He closed his eyes again, content, basking in the sunlight.

The whole of London had been sweltering in the heat for a while already, the streets dusty and the leaves of the trees drooping. Roger had picked out a bench in the park near the cricket pitch, settling down to wait for Freddie and to enjoy the day, for his part revelling in the warmth and the promise of a whole day ahead of him, and the sweet knowledge that there was nowhere else he needed to be today. Out on the street, the dust was choking and the heat felt sticky, but here, just a couple steps away, the trees still moved on a slight breeze, and the exhaust fumes from the afternoon traffic were something that belonged in another world.

There was a game in progress on the pitch in the distance, and the thumps of the bat hitting the ball came drifting on the wind in his direction, now and then. People were sunbathing on the grass next to Roger, blankets spread out on the grass. It would only have taken a cigarette for the moment to have been perfect, Roger reflected; he'd have to remember to cadge a couple of smokes from one of the guys later, at the pub.

"Well, actually, now that you go to all the trouble of pointing it out," Freddie said. "I may have got a little caught up in something. There was this idea I wanted to run past you. It's been plaguing me all morning."

"Oh?" Roger said, still halfway asleep.

"You see, it's this story. This thing that I thought of. I think maybe it would make a good song. Or maybe it's just a story, I don't really know yet. There's these dragons – "

"Dragons?" Roger said, sitting up, drowsiness quickly fading. "What are you on about? It's not that poem again? 'The Pied Piper'? I don't know if I – "

Freddie waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, I don't know. No need to get worked up. I think it might be really about this king, actually. I can't quite see it yet. But it might be a song. I hope it will be."

Roger raised his eyebrows. This was odd, even coming from Freddie, who was full of extraordinary ideas, more often than not. He no longer felt like napping, but turned on the bench, facing Freddie properly.

"So, it's a song about a king? Or something else? Last week you were writing a song about rats," he said, a little desperately. "If you're writing another one, maybe you should talk to Mike about it? Or, I don't know, maybe Brian? I don't know if I..."

"Oh, no, no. I want to talk with you. And why aren't you writing songs, anyway, Rog? Brian's always scribbling away. I'm sure you have some good ones in you," Freddie said, looking at him a bit too knowingly.

Roger shifted where he was sitting. He was definitely not squirming. Absolutely not. He had no reason to, did he? Instead, he looked at where Freddie was now fiddling with the strap of his bag, fascinated by his hands.

"Well, who knows," Roger mumbled. "Maybe I'll write a song or two someday. Who knows what might happen," he said, trying to make light of it. "So what about those dragons anyway? What was it that you were saying?"

Roger was so preoccupied with trying to divert Freddie's attention from his songwriting, or the lack of it, that he completely missed the satisfied smirk that flitted over Freddie's face. Instead, he saw Freddie opening his bag and taking out a notebook. It had a green fabric cover, Roger noted, and its pages seemed to be mostly blank. There was a drawing on one page, but before Roger could crane his head around to get a proper look at it, Freddie had already moved on, flipping quickly through the book, humming under his breath while he searched for whatever it was he wanted to talk to Roger about.

Breathing easier now that it seemed that Freddie had moved on from trying to coax a song out of him, Roger was finally able to lift his eyes to Freddie's face again.

"Is that a new notebook? Only I don't remember seeing it before," he said.

Freddie nodded. "Well, it's nearly new. I had planned to use this as a sketchbook, but I suppose not. I think I'll maybe be needing it for writing in, all these things don't seem to be leaving me alone… Ah, yes, here it is," he said, triumphantly. He held on to the right page in the book with one hand, reaching up to brush his hair from his eyes with his other hand. "You see I had to write it down and everything, it was driving me completely crazy this morning. And there might be more like it someday, that's what it feels like, I might need a whole book for it. Now, darling, make yourself comfortable," he said, with a pointed look in Roger's direction. "I'm going to tell you a story."

Well, why not, after all, Roger thought, leaning back again. It was definitely weird, and it wasn't as though they made a habit of telling each other bedtime stories or anything. But why not. Here, on a warm summer's day, in the park, feeling drowsy, everything seemed slightly unreal. So why not listen to a tale about dragons or whatever, if that's what Freddie wanted to do. After all, there was very little that he wouldn't do if Freddie asked him, he thought, and then shifted, uncomfortably. Well, perhaps not quite anything. Or would he? He didn't know, really. He settled down again to listen to Freddie, ignoring his disturbing thoughts as well as he could. 

"'In a land far away from here, where there were still fairies and dragons, dragons of all colours, beautiful and wonderful, everyone lived in peace with each other. The dragons respected the fairies, and the fairies trusted the judgement of the wise dragons. The land was ruled by the king of the fairies, and he was more beautiful and more skilled in magic than anyone else in the land. People would travel from afar just to get a glimpse of his fair hair and beautiful blue eyes.'"

Freddie stopped, as though he was waiting for Roger to say something. Roger glanced his way, questioning. Freddie looked quickly down again at his book, bit at his lip, and after a moment, he continued speaking.

"'It was a peaceful and happy land, until one day, the day that the humans came. They came to conquer their land, and they brought destruction with them. But in that land, there were two dragons, who were the wisest of them all. The fairy king trusted them to help save the land. The dragons spoke with each other. One of them was called Dawn and the other one was called Eve.'"

Roger snickered, a little, at the names.

"Oh, hush," Freddie said, touching his arm lightly. "I'm working on it. I had to call them something, didn't I? It was all I could come up just now. I'll change them later. Anyway. 'The dragon Eve was black, black as ink, and her black scales gleamed in the light. The dragon Dawn was silver, and the brightness of her scales dazzled anyone who looked on her.'" 

Freddie continued to talk, and his voice blended in with the sound of the wind in the trees, the calls of the cricket players, the birds and the distant roar of the traffic in the background. The dragons of the tale that Freddie was weaving took flight in Roger's mind, black and white and silver, majestic and almost frightening.

"'The dragons spoke with each other. They spoke of the devastation that the humans had brought with them, and the destruction of the whole of their country that wasn't far away. They spoke of the sharp, dreadful knives of the humans. And they tried to decide what to do. They were outnumbered, and the humans had already killed many of their kind. They had even broken the fairy circle ring that guarded their country and it seemed like the situation was hopeless. But that's when the dragon Day came up with the idea of, of something.'"

Freddie faltered and came to a halt. "Are you still with me?" he asked.

Roger blinked his eyes open again. "Yeah, yeah. She came up with an idea."

"Well, that's where I'm stumped. I know that the king comes into it somehow. This fairy king that I mentioned. He's linked to the fairy circle ring, obviously. And I have this line that I think would be good in a song – _my fairy king can do right and nothing wrong_ – and there's this melody that might go with it, but I have no idea how he comes into it all. Do the dragons ask him to do something? But wouldn't that be dreadfully lame, particularly when he'd just asked the dragons to save everyone, don't you think, darling?"

"A bit, yeah," Roger conceded. He didn't have a clue what Freddie was on about, actually. But he didn't want him to stop. He didn't want to stop listening to Freddie's voice, and painting a completely fantastic picture in his head. The heat of the day had lulled him into a haze, and it felt easy to just let himself go. He roused himself enough to try to get Freddie to continue. 

"You'd need something like where the king would maybe be captured by the humans," Roger said, surprising himself. "You need to make the situation really desperate, or maybe the dragons are magical, too, you know?" Freddie frowned, and stared at his notebook, looking unsure.

"So how does the song go? What's the melody? Got the chords already? You need to have drums for it, of course," Roger went on, starting to feel a little desperate when Freddie still didn't answer. He wanted to keep listening to Freddie's voice; he wanted to make him laugh. 

Freddie looked up and flashed a grin at Roger, bringing his hand quickly up to hide his teeth. "I had no idea you'd be this enthusiastic, Rog. I mean I thought you wouldn't want to hear this. I'll sing it to you later," he promised. "I haven't got it all figured out yet. I know the chords to some of it, and I have all the lovely melodies you could ever hope for. That's not the trouble. But you see, I don't know if the song and this, whatever this is, the dragons and stuff, if they go properly together. Maybe it's sort of two separate things. You know?" He trailed off. 

"Mmm, maybe," Roger said. "But it's your song. Story. Whatever. So it can be whatever you want it to be. Why not both? So is it going to be for the guys? Have you played it for them yet? I'd like to hear it, either way."

Freddie made an indeterminate noise. "I don't know, darling. I really haven't decided yet. It's kind of, it's not quite right for Mike and the guys and for what we're doing now. Maybe I need to just keep working on it. But I could sing it to you if you liked. I mean, not right now." He looked at the scene around them, the heat-dazed Londoners looking preoccupied and not like they'd appreciate an impromptu concert.

"But, you know," he continued. "It's not very rock and roll as it is, anyway. Can you think that a Liverpool rock band would be singing about fairies? Even if I don't necessarily mean it as – I mean you can make up your own mind about what I mean with them – but I'm not sure even I could make the others agree to any of it. I can't imagine Miffer's face if I suggested fairies to him," he laughed, slightly embarrassed. 

Roger just looked thoughtful. "Well, I don't know, Fred. It totally depends," he said. "Why not? Depends on what it would sound like, the whole song, you know? Why couldn't the lyrics be totally far out and – I don't know – outrageous? Isn't that good? Make an impression on whoever's listening? And being able to read it any way you want to? I like it," he said.

Freddie laughed again. Roger liked the sound of that. 

After that, they were quickly happily lost in an argument about the relative merits of different bands, different styles and sounds. The conversation meandered from one topic to another, dragons and fantasy realms giving way to bad jokes and absurdities, and back again to music, the way it always seemed to do with them.

Freddie was just talking about the need to prepare differently than usual for his next gig with Ibex, scheduled for next week, at a bigger venue than their previous ones had been. He was waving his hands animatedly through the air, when Roger suddenly was arrested, looking at him, at this beautiful person in front of him. He had known for a while that Freddie was special to him. He never talked with anyone quite the way he talked with Freddie, and he never felt so at ease as he did when he was with Freddie. But he had never quite stopped to think what that might mean, or whether Freddie thought the same about him in return. But now, he found that he couldn't stop staring, couldn't tear his eyes away from Freddie's graceful, powerful hands, his face as he was talking, the slight blush on his cheekbones, and his lips. Roger's thoughts stopped there.

Freddie had to have felt his intense gaze, because he suddenly licked his lips nervously and stopped talking. He leaned closer, and Roger found himself mirroring the movement, still carefully not thinking about what he was doing.

"So that fairy king I was talking about," Freddie said, his voice now little more than a whisper. "The story. You think it would be good enough to make into a song? You're not just saying that?" He looked unsure, and his eyes moved over Roger's face, now much closer to his own than before. "I know it's not very original. It's not like you wouldn't have read something like it somewhere a hundred times already," he said.

Roger leaned closer, feeling breathless. 

"But you see, I keep seeing these two dragons," Freddie said. "This picture of them. Like I said. They're facing each other, and their colours are in contrast, and they're meeting in order to save their world. I can't get it out of my head, so I thought it might help if I wrote it down. And the king, too."

He glanced at Roger from underneath his lashes, so quickly that Roger almost didn't catch it. 

"I think he's the centre of this. I think it's like a, a, web, maybe," he said, looking down again, drawing curling shapes with the tip of his finger on the notebook in his lap. "The king is in the middle of it, and there are these songs, or stories, or whatever, and they're all somehow connected. Do you see? Would you want to hear about it?"

Roger matched Freddie's low tone. "Yeah, sure I'd like to hear more. You only told me how it begins anyway."

He found he wanted to get even closer to Freddie. He shifted on his seat until there was almost no space left at all between them, Roger's sneakers almost touching Freddie's boots. Roger lifted his hand towards Freddie, placing it on the backrest, next to Freddie's shoulder, fingers moving restlessly.

Freddie bit his lip. He didn't look away; instead, he leaned closer still.

There was a sudden shout from the cricket pitch. Someone was running, fast; the other team's players looked agitated. Roger startled, blinked, righted himself, and just like that, the moment was broken. 

Freddie drew his hand through his hair. He looked down into his lap, and then sighed, closed the notebook decisively and put it back into his bag.

"We should probably get going. The others will be at the pub already," Freddie said. "My God! How I've always hated cricket," he added, with a distasteful look at the pitch.

Freddie got up, shrugged, adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, brushed non-existent dust away from his immaculate trousers, and started walking, confident that Roger would follow him.

Roger was left staring at his back. What the hell had just almost happened? Had he just almost – almost kissed his best friend? And had it seemed as though he might have wanted to kiss him back? And in a public place, too – in broad daylight – in the park? He froze in horror. What had come over them?

He shook his head quickly, trying to shake the thought of what might have happened away, and hurried after Freddie, soon falling into step with him easily. 

The others would be waiting, and they had a whole night in front of them. It wasn't a time to get lost inside his head.


	2. Surrey, 2019 (Autumn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes he felt as though he had spent half his life remembering Freddie, trying to recall every last word he had said, the meaning of every gesture. (He smiled, sadly, when he remembered another phrase from a story. He had been on the path for half his life, that's what Fred might have said.) Still, even now, after all this time, there were so many things that could creep on him unawares and take him by surprise, leave him wondering about the man he had been so close to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who's been reading this, left a comment or kudos! It means so much!
> 
> I've updated the tags (yay!), and I'll continue to do so as I go on. One potentially missing tag is Writer Spends Too Much Time Staring at Photos of Freddie… 
> 
> I'd love a comment if you at all feel like leaving me one! Or come shout at me if you want to!

_(The March of the Black Queen)_

*

Brian had been fiddling with his guitar case backstage after their recent gig. He had adjusted it several times, completely unnecessarily, and then straightened his collar, equally needlessly. All signs that there was something that he wanted to say, but couldn't find the right words. Roger was more than familiar with the symptoms.

"Right, out with it, Bri. What is it?"

Brian had blinked, hummed and hawed for a while, and then cleared his throat. 

"I was just thinking, the other day. It's nothing important. But, um. You know. D'you remember the scarf that Freddie used to have, the white one with black zigzag stripes?" Brian had asked. "The way you two used to share clothes –"

"Share? Now hang on. You make it sound as though we tried to wear them at the same time or something," he had said, trying weakly to crack a joke. Listening to Brian reminiscing always seemed to bring his emotions to the surface, unless he was prepared beforehand. The last thing he had wanted to do was to end up crying all of a sudden.

"Ha ha," Brian had said, humouring him. "No, I just wondered where that one ended up, is all. Do you know? It's not somewhere at your place, is it?"

"No, I don't think so," Roger had said. "I don't think I ever borrowed that. Freddie loved that scarf. But I think he used some of mine, though… why?"

"Oh, no reason. I was just going through some of my old clothes at home and I wondered where some of our stuff went. You know, you forget so much," he had said, shaking his head.

Now there was a sentiment he could agree with wholeheartedly. But they had gone their separate ways then, each preoccupied with their own lives, and said no more about it. Roger was left wondering if there wasn't something else that Brian had wanted to ask him, something more – personal, perhaps. Not that Freddie's scarf wasn't a personal enough thing; it went with him everywhere for many years, after all. 

In any case, Roger was confident that Brian would eventually get around to telling him whatever it was that was bothering him. He usually did. In the meantime, Brian's preoccupation with Freddie's clothes had left him with questions of his own that didn't seem to be leaving him alone any time soon. And so, a week after the gig, sitting on the terrace in his own garden back home, he finally shook his head resolutely, to clear the cobwebs and to tell himself to just get on with it already.

There was a certain photo of Fred he had taken with his old Polaroid camera, back in the very early Seventies. Freddie had been smiling in the photo, a little surprised by the click of the shutter, wearing… yes, what had he been wearing? Roger seemed to remember that Freddie had grabbed a jacket that was actually Roger's, that day, one that had ended up looking much better on Freddie than it ever did on him. But did Freddie actually have the jacket on in that particular photo, or was he remembering something that had happened later? And had he been wearing one of Roger's scarves, or the black-and-white one that Brian was talking about? What was it that Freddie had said when he saw the Polaroid? Why couldn't he remember, and would he remember if he saw the photo? And most importantly, where was the photo now? 

For whatever reason, the whole exchange with Freddie (whatever it had been) had been on his mind recently, even before Brian's remarks, but now he really needed to look at the photo again. He needed to see if he could bring it all back to his mind. And to see whether or not Freddie was wearing the jacket. 

No use to get stuck thinking about it. He just needed to find the photo, that was all. Roger walked into the house from the garden, and into his study. The large, pleasant room was bathed in autumn sunlight coming in from the large windows giving to the rhododendron bushes. He frowned at the bookshelf.

Now let's see. A part of the Polaroids were in a scrapbook, but he thought that the snapshot he was looking for was somewhere else. There was a stack of his old calendar diaries on one shelf; maybe the photo was inside one of them? 1972, 1973… no, that was too late. Wait, didn't he have a whole box of photos somewhere as well?

He'd put that box somewhere on the same shelf as the diaries, he was sure of it. Moving things out of the way, his fingers brushed over a worn notebook cover. It didn't look familiar at first glance, and he couldn't remember what was in it just by the looks of it.

He picked the notebook up, considering it. The book had to be from around that same time, early Seventies at the latest, most likely, judging by the shape it was in. The green fabric cover was tattered, and the corners had become rounded with time. It had definitely seen better days.

He opened the book and started leafing through it, mildly curious at first. Slowly he realised what he was looking at. He closed the cover suddenly, decisively, grabbed both the box of photos (at some point in time, it had migrated to behind a row of books on the next shelf) and the notebook, turned quickly on his heel and walked out of the study and back out to the terrace, where a cup of tea was still cooling. He sat back down in his chair and placed the items in front of him on the table.

He ran his fingers over the cover of the notebook again, staring at it, memories flitting through his mind and painting a very different picture than his garden in the autumn. He hadn't thought about the contents of the book for a long while.

"I thought Freddie had this," he muttered under his breath. "I thought it had ended up with Mary. Or that it had just been thrown away a long time ago." How on earth had it ended up in his study?

Most of the pages were filled with Freddie's looping, sprawling handwriting, but his own spikier lettering showed up here and there. There was even a page where the handwriting looked like Brian's cursive scrawl. That fit in with his memories: he remembered writing down an idea or two in the book, and most of their few possessions had been more or less shared back then anyway (much like their clothes, really). But most of all, he recalled Freddie lying on a bed, on his stomach, feet in the air, carefully trying not to crease the duvet, or scrunched up in a corner of a sofa, reading aloud from the notebook. And he remembered laughing with Freddie. Always that.

There were also a couple of drawings in the book. Roger smiled at an unmistakable Jimi Hendrix, and felt his breath catch when he saw a pencil sketch of... well, it had to be him, hadn't it? He stared at the carefully drawn, long, messy strands of hair and the curve of nose that looked so oddly familiar, and were a shock to see on the page. He had no recollection of Freddie drawing that, but clearly he must have. At some point.

He stayed a moment on a page that contained a line that he remembered Fred singing in the studio, many times over. _Surrender to the city of the fireflies._ That song became so complicated that at some point, Freddie was throwing every line that scanned that he could scrounge up at the song, never mind if it made sense. Roger had forgotten so much about it all. But the City of the Fireflies? That was one phrase that did have a meaning. And why were the powder monkeys in the same song blue? Freddie was fascinated by the term when he read it somewhere, and he had made up a whole story about them, Roger recalled. It might even be in the notebook somewhere. It definitely didn't have anything to do with any naval battles, though, he knew that. 

But yes. Nowadays, it was difficult to think of that particular song without flinching at a certain part of the lyrics. Maybe they hadn't known better at the time, young idiots that they were, but he was embarrassed by the whole song now, and wished they would have, somehow, stopped to think. And not included that particular word at all.

Shaking his head again, Roger turned a page. 'The kingdom of Rhye was ruled by the Fairy King,' he read. The song had come first, before the lyrics and before the name, and before even the majority of the tales in the book, he thought – although he remembered several wild stories about dragons that Freddie had told him back in the very early days, whenever the mood took him. But the Fairy King. Freddie had many stories about him, didn't he? Stories where he triumphed over his enemies and stories where he was defeated, stories where he had to flee and go into exile from his kingdom… Freddie had seemed almost fixated on the character. Sometimes Roger thought that Freddie was talking about himself when he talked about the fairy king, even though he always insisted on describing him with long fair hair and… no, hold on. It couldn't be. No, Freddie couldn't have meant that. It didn't just mean one thing, and it wasn't that easy. Roger shook his head again. In any case, Freddie kept making up stories about the king, even long after the song with that name was released, even after Freddie had stopped writing songs that mentioned Rhye. 

The stories in the notebook weren't complete, Roger noted. Well, that's the way he remembered Freddie telling them: scribbling down the beginning of something, or a phrase or two, and then just making the rest of it up, abandoning the notebook in favour of leaning closer to Roger, and draping an arm over his shoulder.

There was a chord progression jotted down on one page. G, Bm/F#, something he couldn't quite make out, maybe that was supposed to be a dim chord? And E, and a scribble on top of the line that looked like notes on a riff. Roger thought for a while, and then smiled, nodding to himself in confirmation when he saw the words written down at the bottom of the page. _He gives a great big shout. He can swallow up the ocean._ He had always liked doing that one on stage, with its crazy tempo and high screeches. Back when those felt as easy as anything.

Music was always their primary focus, of course. And they didn't often talk about lyrics, not really. Someone might object to a line sometimes, or even a whole song (he smiled a little, thinking of the many rows about 'I'm in Love with My Car', and the friction that it caused for so long. It did get better, over time, and nowadays he mostly felt a bit proud of not having given in), but when a song sounded personal, no one really wanted to pry. To be fair, they had known each other well enough to know why most of their songs had been written, anyway. But they definitely didn't want to talk about it with nosy journalists, or later, budding biographers.

So for most of the time, lyrics went largely undiscussed and unchallenged. Everyone had their own ways of working with them, and everyone certainly wrote about things in their own life, at least to an extent. But once someone brought a song to rehearsal, for the others to see, play and discuss, the dissection that followed was almost always focused on musical issues. Brian wanted to add a chord just there; Freddie disagreed. Roger suggested another chord altogether, and John was deep in thought, building a bass pattern for another passage. Freddie heard John's playing and suddenly wanted to change the entire structure of the song. And so it went on. But the words were rarely important at that point.

And neither were the stories, even if a couple of ideas and phrases from them did resurface in Freddie's lyrics, at least back then, in the early days. It was just something they amused themselves with from time to time, really. Brian and John joined in, once in a while, but mostly it was Freddie making up wild stories for Roger, and Roger sometimes adding to them, to amuse Freddie in his turn. There were so many ideas, so many thoughts that they were constantly bouncing off of each other, in those days. Most often, their restless urge to create and to make something of their own was channelled into songs, but sometimes there would be a story, or a drawing, or something else completely.

He turned another page, reading a couple of lines. Suddenly he snatched his hands away from the notebook, as if he'd been burned. He felt a blush starting somewhere at the back of his neck, spreading quickly upward until he was sure his cheeks were flaming. Well, _that_ was a bit unexpected, he thought. At least there was no one around to see him. Or. Well. He really hadn't recalled that that particular story was so – so – well, _graphic_. But the thing was, he definitely could remember Freddie writing it down. Only not in quite so much… detail. But he could remember leaning against Freddie, feeling his heartbeat where his ear was pressed against his chest, being curled up next to him on the too narrow bed, feeling Freddie's heartbeat under his hand, had it been at the Ferry Road flat? No, it had to be later. He remembered hearing the sharp bark of John's quick laughter from the next room, and the whistle of the tea kettle, as he snuggled even closer to Freddie, only to have him swat his hand away with a gentle smile, telling him he was interfering with his writing. 

No, hang on. Now that he thought about it – he had had a cold, hadn't he. That's why he had been in bed, and that's why he had been plastering himself to Freddie's side when Freddie had been trying to write. The worst of the 'flu had already passed at that point, he thought, but there had still been a small mountain of hankies on the bedside table, and he had been feeling just poorly enough that the warmth of another body pressed against him was irresistible. Weirdly, he could also remember the sound of Chrissy and Ronnie talking nearby, about – what was it? – the difficulty of finding a flat, wasn't it? Curious that his brain should have held on to that particular conversation, and all the while Freddie had been penning… _this_… next to him.

Roger drew the notebook slowly closer to him again, feeling like it might bite him if he wasn't careful. Freddie must have continued the story sometime later, he thought. When Roger was no longer sniffling and shaking with the 'flu, most probably. But now he also remembered, vividly, why one part of that song had ended up being a duet. _I'll be what you make me. I'll do what you like._ He shivered, the blush still evident on his face. No, that definitely wasn't something that they would have shared with any reporters.

He was roused from his thoughts some time later by a large black bird cawing in a nearby tree, the tea long since gone cold in front of him. He sighed and closed the tattered notebook cover. The funny thing was that he had forgotten the existence of these stories, sketches, whatever they were, so completely. It was strange: sometimes he felt as though he had spent half his life remembering Freddie, trying to recall every last word he had said, the meaning of every gesture. (He smiled, sadly, when he remembered another phrase from a story. He had been on the path for half his life, that's what Fred might have said.) Still, even now, after all this time, there were so many things that could creep on him unawares and take him by surprise, leave him wondering about the man he had been so close to.

He hadn't even remembered the stories, and still, it was obvious that Freddie had laboured over them, been careful with his handwriting, penned down so many of them. Almost as if he were trying to say something, as if the whole of the book added up to something. But what it was, Roger still couldn't remember. Maybe Brian would? Should he maybe ask him if he knew why the book had ended up in his possession? And when Freddie had actually worked on all of those stories? Had Brian heard all of them, or were they just a thing between Freddie and him?

He took a final look at the book. _My life is in your hands._ A last trace of a blush made its way across his cheeks. He couldn't even remember how much Brian had known, about. Well. All of that. He ought to ask him, but in some way that wouldn't embarrass both of them. And continue looking for the photo at another time, he thought. He needed to see that too, but the book had certainly given him more than enough to think about for one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still with me? Thank you so much for reading!


	3. Barnes, London, 1969 (Autumn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A thunderstorm and a story by candlelight...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's read this, left kudos or commented! I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me! ❤️
> 
> Wikipedia tells me that "Ogre Battle" wasn't written until 1971. (Oops?) But either the song in this chapter is a very early version of it, or if you like, maybe Freddie is playing another song altogether. It's not hugely important for the story, I don't think...
> 
> ***
> 
> There's now a podfic for almost the whole of this chapter! It's by the incredible [nastally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nastally/pseuds/nastally) 💖 (I can't believe she did this! But it's absolutely wonderful!)
> 
> Go listen to it here:
> 
> [Part 1](https://plainxte.tumblr.com/post/614545086867488768/this-is-so-fantastic-i-literally-cant-believe)
> 
> [Part 2](https://plainxte.tumblr.com/post/614545273164873728/and-heres-the-second-part-head-over-to)
> 
> ***

_(Ogre Battle)_

*

It was absolutely pouring it down. The autumn storm had moved in during the early afternoon, and now it was almost as dark out as if it were in the middle of the night. 

Roger closed the door behind him with a sigh, shrugging his dripping wet jacket off his shoulders. The Ferry Road flat was crowded and dingy, but at least it wasn't raining inside. Much, he noticed, eyes on a towel that someone had thoughtfully wedged under the hall window.

The place seemed unusually silent. Roger padded further in to the flat, trying to ignore the fact that his jeans were soaked through and rapidly becoming uncomfortable. He turned a corner to the breakfast room. More often than not, there was someone, or even several someones, bunking there, but today, it looked empty – except, that was, for a certain dark-haired person, sitting on the ghastly red sofa. He was bent almost double with his nose practically touching the notebook page he was writing on.

"Fred!" Roger said, by way of greeting. "I didn't know you'd be at home. Where are the others?"

Freddie startled and looked up. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack, darling? Nice to see you too, by the way," he said.

"Sorry," Roger said, looking around the room, still trying to figure out whether they were alone. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" he asked, flipping the light switch beside him. The sound of the rain outside intensified.

Freddie blinked in the sudden light. "Oh, just got carried away, lost in my own head, I suppose," he waved the question away. "As for the others, I've no idea. There might be someone in the room at the end of the corridor, of course, you know, but I sure as hell haven't checked," he said.

The room furthest away from the door and the question of whether there was actually anyone living there was a bit of a running gag in the household. 

"Yeah, right. Apart from the resident ghosts, of course," Roger said, just as there was a crack of thunder outside. All at once it didn't seem like such a good joke anymore. He shivered and dragged up a chair for himself, sitting down by the table, looking at Freddie.

"So what are you up to? New song?"

Freddie shifted and closed the notebook. It was the green one, of course. "Oh, well, yes, I suppose. It's going to be a song, I think. But I was also just, you know, thinking."

He seemed to see Roger properly, then. "But I'm very happy you came home. It's been very lonely here. But Rog, you do know you're completely wet, don't you? Don't tell me you haven't noticed. You there," he pointed a finger at Roger, "you need to change into dry clothes. Go do that, and then come back here. I don't know why you're sitting shivering wet on the other side of the room when you could be sitting on the nice – well, maybe not that, but on the sofa, anyway, next to me."

"Yes, yes, fine, Fred. Stop fussing," Roger said, but got up nevertheless, going off in search of a dry pair of trousers. 

There was another flash of lightning and thunder not far off when he wandered back into the room, combing his fingers through the damp mess of his hair. 

"I thought you'd be in Liverpool already," he remarked.

"No, no, the gig is tomorrow," Freddie said absently, still scribbling. "I'm going up in the morning with Mike. Are you coming?" he asked, glancing at Roger.

"Yeah, I suppose," Roger said, taking a seat on the sofa, where Freddie patted the space next to him invitingly. "But I must've got the dates mixed up somehow. Brian would know. I suppose it's because we cancelled band practice yesterday. You know, whatever. So what were you working on? Can I hear?" he asked, glancing curiously at Freddie's notebook.

He smiled, a little, tight-lipped.

"It's just another fairy king story, really," he said. "I'll tell it to you if you like, sometime. I was a little… I was just trying to cheer myself up, I think."

"Why? What's happened?"

"It's nothing, really, dear," Freddie said. "I'm not sure I want to talk about it. I mean, who cares about what someone thinks about my looks, anyway. It's not important"

Oh no. This wasn't good.

"Don't look at me like that," Freddie said. "Let's talk about something else. Really. Actually, could you help me out with the song?"

Roger sighed. He was slightly more comfortable with the thought of songwriting now than he had been. Freddie's enthusiasm was catching, he thought. If pressed, he might even have admitted to having scribbled down a couple of chords and some words to go with them, on some loose sheets of paper that were currently hiding on his nightstand. But he still wasn't sure he knew what Freddie wanted from him. He had come to appreciate his friend's ideas, though, and there was really nothing better than talking about music. Apart from actually playing, of course.

"Sure, let's hear it," he said to Freddie.

Freddie smiled at him, and then looked down at his notebook.

"Hmm. What was it that I was going to ask you about? Oh, now I know. You see, I had this idea for a riff, but I don't know what the drums should sound like, to go with it."

Roger hummed, now feeling rather interested.

"So I wanted to know, what would you play if, oh, I don't know," Freddie started, looking away from him, trying to find the right words. "If the song was really quick. If there was a guitar riff that went like..." He hummed a snatch of a melody, and then, abruptly, he stood up.

"Oh, this is ridiculous. Where's Brian's guitar got to? It was here just now."

He looked around.

"I think someone took it to the kitchen yesterday or something," Roger ventured from the sofa, not feeling like getting up and doing something about it, now that he was finally starting to feel comfortable.

Freddie huffed. He disappeared in the direction of the front door, and Roger was left listening to the thunder. Christ, that was close.

Suddenly, without any warning, the lights went out and the room was illuminated only by a quick flash of lightning. Freddie was outlined in blue where he now stood in the doorway, with an acoustic guitar in his other hand.

"Way to make an entrance, Fred. What was it you said about heart attacks?" Roger said, a little shakily.

Freddie spread out his arms expansively, waving the guitar around.

"But of course, darling. What were you expecting?"

He sat back down on the sofa next to Roger, checking the guitar's tuning.

"I can't see a bloody thing," he complained. "Rog, be a dear, will you, and see if there aren't any candles left in the kitchen, would you?"

Roger rolled his eyes. Not that it did any good, of course, since the flat was now almost completely dark, and as Freddie said, it was impossible to see anything. Resigned to his fate, Roger made his way to the kitchen in his turn. He felt his way along the walls, but was unable to avoid running into a stray chair on the way. A slightly desperate rummage in the kitchen cupboard resulted in victory: someone had had the foresight to buy a whole box of candles, just for this kind of situation. And by the feel of it, there were at least a couple of candles left. Better and better.

Wasn't there even a candle holder in the breakfast room? Roger thought back and definitely remembered someone – Mike? No, it couldn't have been. Well, someone – lighting a candle just a couple of days ago, or it could have been yesterday, even, saying something about needing the right kind of vibes, man… either way, it had to be still there.

He returned to the other room, narrowly managing to avoid being ambushed by any chairs this time around. Freddie was still bent over the neck of the guitar, trying to see the tuning pegs properly. The guitar was one of Brian's, and he kept it in good shape, as a rule. But in a household like theirs, with so many people coming and going, and so many budding musicians among them, the guitar got frequently moved from one place to another and (gently) abused. It was wisest to assume that the tuning would always be off.

Roger felt around first on the crowded breakfast table and then the top of the chest of drawers, finally locating the candle holder, snatching it up with a little triumphant "ah-ha!" noise. A few moments later, they were able to see each other again, even if the candlelight was feeble and flickering.

"Oh, that's much better, darling," Freddie looked up at Roger for a moment, fixed the low E string to his liking, and began to strum in earnest.

"Now, listen to this, Rog. This is slow, now, of course. I can't play it faster yet. But I will. I want it to have something like twice this tempo once it's finished, right? Keep that in mind, yeah?" 

Roger's response was lost under another crack of thunder. They both stopped, shaken.

After they had both got over their – well, neither of them would ever have admitted to being afraid of thunder, but it was startling, nevertheless – what was definitely not fright, Freddie began playing again. Roger had no difficulty imagining the riff in double tempo; it sounded aggressive, almost angry, and all in all, pretty brilliant. It needed a completely different sound to work than the softness of Brian's acoustic, but Freddie's sharp downstrokes managed to give the whole thing an edge that made it easy to picture.

Freddie came to a halt. "Something like that?" he said. "I don't know if you… I'd want the drums to be, kind of, I'd want them to make it sound even faster, even more urgent. I know I didn't play it like that, but…"

"No, no, I get it," Roger said eagerly, talking over Freddie in his excitement. "It would need to be something pretty light to begin with, something that would just follow the riff, you know? Something like –" he looked around, as though expecting to find his drumsticks somewhere lying around.

"Oh, damn," he swore. "I'm not going to be able to find my sticks without light. Well, anyway – can you play it again?" He tapped his fingers on the corner of the table, for lack of anything even vaguely resembling a drumkit, wanting to get going, wanting to _play_.

What was quickly turning into a jam session came to a sudden end with another flash of lightning and a loud crack of thunder right overhead. Their concentration was broken, and Freddie set the guitar aside with a small laugh. 

"I suppose someone's trying to tell us that that was enough for one day. Come back here, you," he said, gesturing at Roger. "Let me tell you a story instead."

Roger groaned, half-heartedly. But he got up and plonked himself down next to Freddie again anyway, perhaps sitting a little closer to him than was strictly necessary. There was a blanket draped over the back of the sofa; he grabbed it and held it in his lap.

"Oh, all right. Go on, then, Fred. Why not. More dragons?"

Freddie picked up the notebook that he had abandoned on the edge of the sofa.

"No, I think it won't be dragons today," he said, distractedly flipping through the book. "Something that works with the weather. How about ogres?"

Roger looked at him, disbelieving. 

"Ogres. Right."

Freddie sighed.

"Oh, just listen to me, will you? It's going to be ogres. But I suppose this is the same country. So that the two wise dragons would have been involved in this, too, in some way. But this is a different thing. I don't think there are any humans in this. I think this was in the, oh, in the seventh year of the most recent fighting between the people of the kingdom of the fairies and the ogres. And, by the way, the place is called Rhye. With an 'h'."

"Oh? Why's that?" Roger asked.

"It's just one of those things," Freddie shrugged. "I've been making up stories about Rhye since forever."

Roger didn't quite know what to make of that. But it seemed natural to lean against Freddie, for warmth and comfort. Freddie didn't seem to mind the contact; he took hold of a corner of the blanket Roger had in his lap, spreading it over his own legs as well. He turned a page in his notebook, and they both settled down for another story.

"Hmm. Now, how does it start?" Freddie said. The thunder seemed to have quietened down for the moment. It was still dark, and the room was lit only by the flickering light of the candle, and they could still hear the wind and the rain.

"'In the seventh year of the fight against the ogres, the troops of the fairy king were losing the battle. The war had been going on for a long time. In fact, fighting between the ogres and the people of Rhye never really stopped. The current conflict had been going on for seven years, but even before that, there had been smaller skirmishes, and before that, earlier wars. The people on both sides were tired, and at the end of the day, no one was sure anymore why they were fighting. The fairy king tried his best to keep spirits up, but he only had a small band of fighters left, and the ogres had superior tactics.

'The fighters were huddled together in the forest. They could see the walls of the city glimmering in the distance, but they knew that no help was coming to them from that quarter. And they knew that the ogres were advancing on them, under cover of darkness.'"

Roger leaned closer to Freddie and shuddered. There was something about Freddie's voice that drew him in and made him want to hear what happened next, despite himself.

"'The king had used his magic to keep their camp lit, to establish a perimeter around the fighters and to keep them safe for as long as possible. But he was exhausted now. There were dark rings around his bright blue eyes, and his protection of the troops was fading.

'One of the lookout guards strained his ears. Was that just a normal sound of the forest at night he was hearing, or was it the ogres getting closer? Suddenly he saw the gleam of a bright ogre helmet for a moment, in the light of the fairy king's enchantment.

'He scrambled back to his mates, raising the alarm as quickly and quietly as he could. The fighters took their stations. They tried to take heart from the sight of their beloved king, standing in line with them, his bright hair undimmed despite his tiredness.

'Now they could all hear the ogres moving through the forest. The fighters tried to keep as silent as possible, but the ogres were moving closer. They could hear each others' breathing. They pressed against each other, hoping against hope that they would be saved. There was a glint of metal as an ogre sword was raised high up in the air and –'"

There was a sudden loud bang from the front door, and the hallway lights were turned on. Both Freddie and Roger jumped. Someone screamed, but Roger couldn't tell who it was. They were so close to each other, he and Freddie, tangled up and so engrossed in the story it could have been either one of them. Perhaps it was both.

Brian's shaggy head appeared around the corner.

"What's wrong? What's happened?" he asked, looking surprised by the sight in front of him: the room in darkness, the candle having extinguished itself in the gust of wind from the door, and Freddie and Roger sitting wrapped up in each other, under the blanket, on the sofa.

"What are you doing? I heard shouting…" he trailed off, clearly not knowing what to say or where to look. Embarrassed, Roger thought, to have embarrassed his friends without having meant to do so.

Roger quickly tried to disentangle himself from the blanket, not with great success, and to put something even resembling a respectable distance between himself and Freddie.

"Oh, it's not…" Freddie mumbled, staring at the wall resolutely. "I was just telling Rog a story, is all. We were just startled when you came in. Has it stopped raining? What time is it anyway?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do leave me a comment if you at all feel like it, do!
> 
> (If someone's following along with this story, ficlet, thing, whatever this is - it might take me a little while longer before I get the next chapter up. It's not playing nice with me, at all. But it's coming!)


	4. Imperial College, London, 1971 (Spring)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About playing music and rehearsing, a bit of a headache, literature criticism, and a story in a pub...
> 
> *
> 
> _John was watching them closely, from the other side of the table, from behind his own pint._
> 
> _"Are there... have you written more about that?" he asked, hesitantly. "It's the same thing as the song we were doing, isn't it? I didn't realise it's a complete story. Is it?"_
> 
> _"There are a couple of stories, yes," Freddie said, looking down at the table. "I suppose they are all sort of connected. But I don't know if this is the place..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you so much to everyone who's read this, left kudos or commented! It means the world, really! 💕

_(Seven Seas of Rhye)_

*

"No, listen! I'm telling you the timing is off! It's okay now 'cos you only have the bass to go on, and we can adjust to you, me and John. But once Brian comes in, it's not going to work! We're going to end up in a mess. We need to figure something out here. Some different way of counting it so we're all sure about it."

Freddie paused, considering.

"Oh, all right, I suppose I see what you mean," he grudgingly agreed. "Let's try it again? From the beginning?" he said, turning to take another look at the lyrics sheet that was perched on top of the piano.

"What if I…"

John's voice was quiet and hesitant, trailing off. Roger nearly missed it altogether.

"What?"

Freddie looked back at him.

"No, I mean, John, what were you saying?"

John looked like he wanted to hide, shifting on his seat, looking at neither of them directly.

"I just," he began, as quietly as before. "I wondered if I should play the guitar part through once. Just so, you know, just so we'd all hear the transition clearly. And then go back to the bass," he added quickly.

"Yes, absolutely!" Freddie nodded, catching on immediately. "That would make it much easier to do, and Roger knows where you come in with the bass so he knows that part already. Well, I know that part, too. Let's do that," Freddie said.

"Yeah, yeah," Roger agreed, leaning back on his stool.

John really was brilliant, Roger reflected. Now if John would only realise that himself, too. Sometimes he still seemed to be afraid to speak out, even though at this point it felt like he had always been in the band. John didn't appear to want to presume, or risk rubbing their established balance, or sometimes, even interrupt one of them. Even when it wasn't anything that couldn't have been interrupted: Freddie in the middle of one of his long expostulations, or himself blowing off some steam, Roger thought. And even when what John had to say usually was exactly what they needed to hear to get on with what they were trying to do. Like right now.

It was such a relief to have John in the band, really. And not only because of all the frankly hopeless replacement bassists that they had tried to make do with, tried desperately to fit into the band, after Barry had left. And not even because John was a genuinely nice bloke. But because having him around meant that they were able to practice and get ready for the summer's gigs, despite Brian being away in Tenerife for his studies.

And, most of all, with John there, they now had the time and the chance to get properly used to each other, and to become the kind of seamless whole that Roger knew they could be. Freddie was feeling the change as well, Roger knew that. Day to day, he was relaxing into his role at the front of the band, gaining confidence and becoming more and more secure in the knowledge that he could rely on the others to give him the backing that he needed so he could focus a song and deliver it to the audience.

Not that it wasn't hard work to get each of their songs to that point, ready to be performed. And maybe even recorded someday. Well, that was the plan. And now, that had started to seem like a distinct, real possibility instead of a distant pipe-dream.

But still, whatever was going to happen, or not, what Roger had always loved most about playing in a band were the short moments when it seemed like they were all of them moving as one being. When it was almost as though they could read each others' minds for just a second, when they would just _know_ when someone was going to start playing. Or know when they were going to turn around, or look in your direction. With Brian, it had started to happen almost immediately after they began playing together. With Freddie, it was almost as easy. And John was no different. After all the trouble they had had, having John there was brilliant. The way they became attuned to each other right from the start, and the way that John, as the knowledgeable bassist that he was, always kept his eyes to Roger, making playing together – not even that, but breathing, living the music together – easier than it ever had been before. It was heady, it was addictive, and it was something that had him eagerly waiting for the moment when they would finally, finally, take to the stage as a complete, finished unit.

And more than that, even. Sometimes, when they played together (particularly when Brian was also there), he got chills: something special was happening between the four of them. It wasn't really like anything that he had experienced before, even though he had thought from very early on that playing in a band was the best thing in the world. But nothing like this had happened in any of his earlier bands, not even Smile, even if it had sometimes been close. But Queen was – could become – something completely else. Something that was just waiting to happen, and waiting to be unleashed on the world.

That was the best part of it. Well, that, and watching Freddie, of course. That was something that Roger enjoyed more than he perhaps cared to admit to anyone. Naturally he needed to keep a close eye on the singer of his band, to make sure they were connected and moving as one, but Freddie was something else. Roger had always thought him beautiful, but seeing Freddie on stage, in front of an audience, that beauty was transformed into something completely extraordinary. Roger didn't think he had ever seen anything quite like it, anywhere. Freddie's eyes, warm and amused, sharp and challenging, sometimes even demanding, held the audience captive, and it was difficult to look away. The way he flicked his hair away from his eyes, the way he flung the hand that wasn't holding the microphone to the side sometimes, and the tilt of his slim hips, the whole way he moved – Roger thought he could write a whole essay on the subject at this point. Certainly with more enthusiasm than he had ever had for his university assignments.

And the part that he absolutely lived for, that was when Freddie sometimes turned around and looked right at him where he was sitting. When he made it clear that they were doing this together, that they were parts of the same entity, working for the same end.

Right. Time to get his head out of the clouds and concentrate on the song, Roger thought, grinning apologetically when he noticed that both John and Freddie were looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to count them in.

Once John had taken over the guitar part that was missing because Brian wasn't there, the song seemed to find its proper shape almost laughably easily. And, Roger reflected, if the small satisfied quirk of John's lips was anything to go by, just as he had known it would.

Freddie moved to the piano, leaning one knee on the bench, looking through the rest of the papers on top of it. 

"There's still time, isn't there?" he said, glancing back at them. "Could we look through the instrumental thing once more? I know it's not on the set list," Freddie said, "and it's not complete, but I have a couple of new ideas I want you to hear. You know, 'Seven Seas of Rhye'?"

Roger adjusted one of his floor toms, Freddie sat down properly at the piano, and John checked his tuning quickly, and then they were up and running again. John had chosen to remain standing after switching back to his bass, and now he started moving to the music, shifting his feet, swaying gently from side to side.

Freddie seemed to be thriving, getting more and more into the rhythm of the song at the piano. Roger and John had both moved in order to see him better. Roger had shifted his stool a little to the left, in order to have a straight line of sight, and John had come to stand right beside Freddie, so that the three of them were working as one.

It was a little odd that Freddie had decided to call the song that, Roger reflected, as they called it a day and started putting their gear away. It wasn't as if there were lyrics yet; but perhaps Freddie had an idea of some sort? It was shaping up to be a good song, in any case.

Roger rubbed his eyes. Damn this headache; it had been around since the morning, and it didn't seem to be letting up any time soon. Possibly he had overdone it, and should have just worn his hated glasses this week instead of trying to manage without them as usual. He shuddered at the thought.

"You coming to the pub, Deacy?" he asked, trying to distract himself from his aching head. "I think Chrissy wanted to talk about throwing Brian a party when he comes back."

John looked unsure, looping an amp cord before stowing it away securely, and opened his mouth.

"Of course he's coming," Freddie said, before John had the time to say anything. "We can't have a party, or even a planning party, without you, John. You will come, won't you?" Freddie asked John, looking at him with wide, pleading eyes. Good luck trying to wriggle out of that one, Roger thought wryly, knowing the force of that look well. Freddie was fiddling with the black-and-white scarf around his neck, and now that Roger was looking, he noticed that Fred had on one of Roger's jackets, too. Not that he was sure that the shirt he was wearing himself wasn't one of Freddie's, come to think of it. Just as well. 

They had all taken quickly to their new bass player, and Freddie even seemed to have foregone his usual shyness around new people altogether, instead going out of his way to make sure John was included in everything they did. Well, Roger thought, he supposed he was doing that himself as well. John simply _fit_, and they didn't want to let that go.

"Fred, do you remember," Roger asked, partly to give John a little breathing space, and a respite from Freddie's stare, "is it going to be a surprise party? I mean, does Brian know about it?"

"I think it will be a surprise, yes," Freddie said. "I'd really love to have a costume party, but that won't work with the surprise, will it? Are you two ready? Well, come on, let's go find out what Chrissy has planned for us," he said, flicking the end of the scarf over his shoulder and taking John by the arm, forcing him to hastily grab his bass case before it got left behind, casting a look back at his amp.

"Don't worry, it'll be safe where it is," Roger said, seeing his look. 

John didn't look completely convinced, but he followed Freddie out anyway without further question.

Chrissy and Mary were waiting for them at the pub, deep in conversation. 

"It's about time that they did something about it, don't you think?" Chrissy was saying. "I mean, have you been there in the morning? There are so many cars it's totally impossible to move, even if you were just walking there from the station."

"Well, I remember hearing about it, but I didn't realise it was that bad. But don't you think it's a shame? All that history?"

Mary spoke quietly, in a measured way, as they all sat down around the same table. 

"But the buildings will still be there, won't they? Oh, I don't know. I just think the mess of traffic is horrible," Chrissy said.

"Where's that?" Roger asked, unable to resist rubbing his tired eyes once more. 

"Hi Rog," Chrissy said. "Covent Garden. That's where the traffic is horrible. I was just there this morning and was completely appalled. Did you hear they're planning to close the market altogether because it's all so congested? And that there was a demonstration against the closure?"

"Really? I suppose it is congested, yeah," he said. "Impossible to drive there in the mornings."

"Ever, more likely," John supplied from the other side of the table, pushing a pint in Roger's direction. 

Roger nodded in agreement, and in thanks. 

"Yes, well," Chrissy said. "Now that you're here, let's get to the point, shall we?" she said, looking around the table, reassuring herself that Freddie was also listening, wedged between Roger and Mary as he was. "So Brian is finally coming home, next Thursday, yes? He's promised to go by his parents' house first, but I'm meeting him right after that, at my place. I'll bring him to wherever we're holding the party, it's as simple as that. We just need to decide where. The Kensington? My flat is too small and so is yours," Chrissy said, with a pointed look in Freddie's direction.

Freddie shook his head at Chrissy, and shrugged his shoulders. He was fiddling with his bag and moving his scarf restlessly back and forth on his neck, his mind clearly not on Brian's party any longer. "Oh, you decide, dear," he said. "Whichever is easiest. It's all fine by me."

Chrissy rolled her eyes at that, but she was soon deep in conversation with Mary about whether the pub owner would need to be notified. Freddie, in his turn, seemed to have reached a decision. He took out the green notebook and a pen from his bag. The glass in front of him stood forgotten.

"Roger, there was something I wanted to check with you," Freddie said, turning to Roger and away from Mary and Chrissy. Can you listen to something? Tell me if it flows right, or if it makes sense."

"Oh, not another story, Fred. Not again. I've a headache as it is," Roger said, slumped over his beer, leaning his elbow on the table.

"Now, now, don't be difficult, dear. Just listen to this," Freddie said imperiously, ignoring Roger's groan.

"'Once upon a time, there was a kingdom called Rhye. It was ruled over by a fairy king, and it was renowned far and wide for the beauty of its towns, its villages and its beautiful Seven Seas.'"

"You've used 'beauty' and 'beautiful' in the same sentence, Fred."

"Oh, shush. That's just the beginning. All right. 'Its shining Seven Seas.' Is that better? 'The citizens of Rhye would have wanted for nothing if it hadn't been for the ogres of the nearby Mirror Mountain.'"

"Citizens? I thought it was a kingdom."

Freddie sighed, irritated. He crossed over the offending word.

"'The people of Rhye.' Is that better, Mr Literature Critic?"

John was watching them closely, from the other side of the table, from behind his own pint.

"Are there... have you written more about that?" he asked, hesitantly. "It's the same thing as the song we were doing, isn't it? I didn't realise it's a complete story. Is it?"

"There are a couple of stories, yes," Freddie said, looking down at the table. "I suppose they are all sort of connected. But I don't know if this is the place..."

"Oh no, now you've done it," Roger said, "now there's no escape. We're in for another one, he'll insist on telling us an entire one," he said, with a grin, touching Freddie's arm to let him know he wasn't serious.

Freddie flushed, and muttered something inaudible. He glanced back up at Roger briefly, a questioning look in his eyes.

Roger shrugged, unsure of what Freddie meant, or what he was asking.

Freddie sighed. "Oh, all right. I suppose it doesn't matter." 

He looked down at the notebook for a moment.

"I'll tell you a story, then. About the fairy king. Roger has heard some of this already, I think. So. Like I was saying before I got interrupted by Mr Proofreader here –"

"Hey!" Roger protested. 

John looked between the two of them, but said nothing.

"Like I was saying," Freddie repeated.

"'The kingdom of Rhye would have been perfectly peaceful, if it hadn't been for the ogres. There had been fighting between the fairies and the ogres from time to time, for a long time. Sometimes the ogres had the upper hand, sometimes the folk of Rhye had been victorious. The fairy king had recently suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of the ogres, and the kingdom was still reeling from that. Not only had the troops been defeated, but the king himself had been captured.

'This was a disaster for the kingdom. The king was well-loved, and what remained of his soldiers were busy trying to mount a rescue attempt. In the palace, the counsellor was beside himself with grief.

'But the king was wily and cunning, and skilled in magic. Unnoticed by his captors, he had managed to escape the dungeons of the ogres, and reached the mountainside. But that's where his luck had run out: he was alone, in the wilderness. No one knew where he was; the night was coming down, and he was getting tired.

'There was only one thing he could think of doing, and it was a dangerous gamble: he decided to call out, with his magic, to the dragons. It was risky because it was possible that the ogres would hear his call, or he might attract other, unwanted attention. Or the dragons might refuse to help him: they took no sides in the long war between the ogres and the people of Rhye, and they were capricious, keeping their own counsel.

'However, it was better than freezing to death in the wild. the fairy king took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and reached out for the dragons in his mind.

'It took a long time, and the king was near to despair, but finally, gleaming in the last rays of sunset, he finally saw two shapes. They flew nearer and as they did so, they resolved into two large dragons: a silver one, and a black one. The dragons didn't seem to be in a hurry: they circled around each other in the air, passing over the head of the fairy king in a dazzling blur of intermingled black and silver; it was almost as though they were teasing each other, or perhaps playfully caressing each other, in the air.

'Finally, the dragons landed in front of the awe-struck fairy king. There was a moment of silence as they regarded each other. Then the beautiful silver dragon spoke, with a voice that was husky and dry, like the crackle of a fire.

'"Fairy king," she said. "Pretty little king. What do you want of us?"

'"Why have you disturbed us?" the black dragon asked, her voice melodious, smoke curling around her snout.

'"I have called you to ask for help, your highnesses, for my need is dire," the king said, bowing as deep as he could. "I would back to my kingdom, but as you see, I cannot reach Rhye unaided. Will you help me? Will you name your price?"

'The silver dragon flicked her enormous tail, and her dry voice sounded almost amused.

'"Any other day, little king, if you had asked this of us on any other day, we would have declined. But as it is, I had just promised my dear" – here she inclined her head towards the black dragon – "that the next favour that was asked of me, I would grant. And I will honour that promise." 

'"But, pretty king," the black dragon interrupted, in her bell-like voice, "do not accept this favour lightly, or think that you can call on us as easily when you next find yourself in a tricky situation."

'And so it was that the citizens' – no," Freddie corrected himself, "that's going to be people, not citizens, again – 'the people of Rhye saw their captured king come back to them in triumph, defying all the odds, riding on the back of the silver dragon. Thunder flashed when he touched down outside the city walls. The dragons had flown through the dark clouds, fearless, and the ogres had caught a glimpse of their passing and shivered in terror. They knew the fairy king would seek revenge. And so he arrived back in his kingdom in all his glory: his people recognised his cocky walk and the set of his slim but strong shoulders and upper arms which belied the beauty of his face. They admired his equally strong and capable hands. His fair hair gleamed, unbound, and his blue eyes shone when he looked upon his kingdom once more. He smiled, a crooked smile that made those who knew him shiver."

John lifted his head up where he had been leaning it against his hand, listening raptly to Freddie.

"Blond hair and blue eyes? Why does that remind me of someone?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Roger.

"What are you looking at me for?" Roger complained. "It's Freddie's story, ask him!"

"No, I was just wondering," John said, with a smile in Freddie's direction. Freddie seemed to be preoccupied with doodling with his pen.

"It's – it's not just one thing," he said slowly. "I'm not saying – he's an idea. Sometimes he's me. And sometimes he's someone else." He looked at John, his eyes wide.

"So what happens when he gets back home?" John asked. "Have you written the next part yet? You might, you know, you could have him falling in love with his prime minister or something," he said. "Didn't you say he had a counsellor?"

"What's got into you, John?" Roger asked, lifting his glass and finding it sadly empty. "I'm not sure I've ever heard you speak so much at one time. What's this about, then?"

John just smiled.

"You're blushing, Roger," John said. "Aren't you? Wouldn't you say he is definitely blushing, Freddie?"

Freddie looked at him, apprehensively at first, but it seemed he couldn't resist the smile that was threatening to burst out.

"Oh, shut up," Roger said, but without heat, and unable to stop a small smile of his own. "Right, who wants another round?" he said, hoping his cheeks weren't an alarming shade of red, getting up and striding purposefully in the direction of the bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do come talk to me in the comments, do!


	5. In and Around London, 2019 (Late Autumn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The blustery autumn wind was tearing at the trees. Roger sat behind the wheel of his car, staring through the windshield, unseeing. It was time for him to be off, but he couldn't seem to tear his thoughts away from the past._
> 
> Memories and meetings...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dates and times here are… well, not based on reality. As such. For the purposes of my story, I'm kind of pretending that they'd need to have a meeting this autumn-ish… yes…? (I know that they don't really, but… indulge me? Or come yell at me in the comments? You're very welcome to do that in any case!)

_(Lily of the Valley)_

*

_They were finally safe, hidden from sight. The fairy king leaned towards him. He took his time, coming closer slowly, agonisingly so, until he was so near that the counsellor felt he was drowning in the blue of his eyes. Slowly, slowly, the king lifted his hand, and ran a fingertip across the counsellor's cheek, and downward, along the line of his jaw, and finally, over his bottom lip. His touch was gentle, light as a feather, and unbearably sweet. The counsellor closed his eyes._

The blustery autumn wind was tearing at the trees. Roger sat behind the wheel of his car, staring through the windshield, unseeing. It was time for him to be off, but he couldn't seem to tear his thoughts away from the past.

_"I'll do anything you want me to. Anything. Command me and I obey," the counsellor whispered, looking at the king who was leaning over him, his hand now tracing a careful path across his thigh. "Anything at all. What would you like me to do – my lord?" he said, looking up at the king from under his eyelashes._

That morning, he had gone through the old photos in the box that had found in his study. He had finally found the old Polaroid of Fred. It had been lurking on the bottom of his box of photos, innocently stuck to a shot taken much later on, one that showed Freddie backstage at one of their American tours. After finding the green notebook, looking at the old photo again had been much less of a shock. 

For luck, he had tucked the photo safely in between the pages of the battered book. Now he kept returning to it in his mind. He had caught Freddie just turning to him: he was looking straight at the camera, smiling slightly, looking surprised. He was, indeed, wearing his beloved black and white scarf – but the jacket wasn't Roger's, but that floral-patterned black and yellow one that had found its way into some of their publicity photos as well. Where those had finally ended up, Roger really had no idea, and unlike Brian, he wasn't particularly interested in the question either. Most of his own clothes from that time had been given away at some point or other, and he felt no particular regret about it.

But the memories had come back with the photo. And now Roger was wondering if he hadn't been, in some corner of his mind, looking for the notebook and all its stories all along. 

He kept hearing Freddie's voice in his head.

"You absolutely had to take my photo now, didn't you, when I wasn't prepared, Rog," he had said. "Perhaps I should have worn your jacket, after all. Don't you think? If I had, it would have been like the story last night, like the fairy king and the counsellor, wouldn't it? With them swapping clothes?"

Followed by a smile much wider and more knowing than the one his camera had caught.

But when had it been, exactly? And why had he written it? Who had he written it for? And how could he ask Brian anything without them both keeling over with embarrassment? But he couldn't just let it be, he couldn't.

Sighing, he turned the key in the ignition, and started the car.

Arriving in Battersea, it looked like it was almost certainly going to rain later, at least if the wind was anything to go by. For now, the tempered glass surface of the modern office building, a skyscraper almost, was gleaming in the weak autumn sunlight. He adjusted his sunglasses before going in. They were due to a meeting about next year's tour dates. Everything was chugging along pretty well, and most of the problems had already been ironed out. This was going to be just a final touchdown, making sure that everyone was on the same page, and that the final bits of their plans could be locked down. Exactly the same kind of meeting they all had been to so many times before.

These days, Roger usually didn't carry a bag with him – phone, wallet, keys, everything else he could manage, or someone could arrange to get him what he needed – but today, he hadn't had the heart to leave the notebook at home. So he had dug out a spare laptop bag and packed the book carefully into it. It still felt a little like it was threatening to burn a hole through the bag's lining.

His luck held out, and just as he had hoped, he managed to catch Brian in the lobby before the meeting was scheduled to start. The business suits in the corridor seemed to be preoccupied with their own affairs, and for once, no one was paying the two of them much attention. It reminded him of another time, of a meeting at the EMI offices, wasn't it, where… oh, it didn't matter, did it? That was the trouble, really. There were so many memories lurking around every corner, ready to assault him at the drop of a hat. Sometimes it was difficult to remember where he was _now_, to hold himself in the present.

Brian immediately started talking about his latest recording project, sounding enthusiastic as ever about a song's possibilities. Roger listened with half an ear; he was wondering how to broach the subject of the stories with him.

"It's definitely got so much potential. It's upbeat and original. And it's not often you get that these days. It's an absolute joy to work with," Brian said.

"Yeah, sounds good," Roger said, distractedly. "I'll be wanting to hear it, too, as soon as possible. Listen, Bri," he said, taking the plunge, "do you remember – about, about Fred, I mean – do you remember that he used to write these stories, back in the early Seventies?"

"Stories?" Brian said.

"Yeah, stories. You see I was looking for a photo the other day and I, and I happened to find this notebook of Freddie's, with all these stories in it. I don't know why I've got it, I'm thinking he must've given it to me at some point. You see I don't remember. But I wondered if you maybe did, remember them, I mean, the stories. Or when he wrote them, or anything."

It was difficult to look at Brian directly, or to come right to the point. He was babbling, he knew. He took his sunglasses off and fiddled with them.

"What kind of stories? I don't know if I –"

"Well, they were all sort of far out, I suppose," he said, trying to sound like it wasn't a big deal. "Like those songs of his that he wrote, back then. Fantasies. You know, Ogre Battle, or Seven Seas of Rhye. Stuff like that. Dragons and things."

"Yeah..." Brian mused. "Rhye. Yeah, I do kind of remember that. Sort of. I remember him telling stories about it, sometimes. 'Long ago and far away, the country of Rhye was ruled by a fairy king...' wasn't it? Something like that? On a tour bus somewhere. Except he didn't really want to talk about them, did he? About why he'd written them? Well, the same as with the songs, you know. But I didn't know he had a whole book of them."

This sounded hopeful. Now if he only could come up with a way to ask what he wanted to know. He swallowed, trying to gather up his courage.

"So do you remember any of the actual stories? Or when he wrote them? About the, the fairy king. And his, um, his counsellor. I was just wondering why the book ended up with me, really. But there was one story... Um. I was kind of wondering when he wrote it. And why, I suppose. And I wanted to ask you if you, well."

"I don't really remember all that much about it. I'm sorry," Brian said. "It was more Freddie's thing, wasn't it? The whole of Rhye. And the road, no, sorry, the path, wasn't it? The path of Nevermore? Even the idea of black and white sides, on the second album, you know, I feel sure that it was Fred who first came up with that. But I don't know. There was so much... all that with Trident. You know. And then I was ill and I'm not sure I remember much of the whole of '74 if I'm honest. And there was Chrissy and we were trying to find a new flat, and everything..."

"I think it might have been earlier than that, though," Roger said. "'71, maybe? Or sometime in '72?"

"I'm so sorry. I really can't say with any certainty. It's such a long time ago... John would remember, I'm sure."

He trailed off, suddenly realising what he'd said.

"Oh, Christ. I'm sorry, Roger. I didn't mean –"

Roger looked down. He bit his lip, breathed in, breathed out. He was calm. He was certainly not going to start crying. Right?

"Nah, it's okay," he managed, after a while. "Don't worry about it. Besides, I'm sure you're right and he _would_ remember. It doesn't matter. Just something I was wondering about."

Brian looked at him, raising his arms like he would have liked to have hugged him, but didn't quite dare. 

Roger very carefully avoided eye contact. He put his shades back on, and cleared his throat.

"Seriously, never mind, Bri," he said. "So how about that meeting, then?"

*

After the last numbers had been crunched, most of the executive suits were already making their way out of the door, and Adam was deep in conversation with Brian's PA. Brian got up and walked round to his side of the large conference table, speaking in a low voice. 

"You know, Rog, I was thinking about what you said earlier. I think I do remember one of Fred's stories, actually. Are you in a hurry? I wondered," he said, diffidently, "could I maybe see the book you were talking about? I mean, if it's not too much…" he trailed off.

Roger put his phone to the side and picked up his bag. He ran a finger slowly across the cover of the notebook before handing it to Brian, a little reluctantly. Brian took hold of it, carefully, turning it around in his hands, before opening the cover slowly. "You said the whole book is filled with the things?" he asked.

Roger nodded.

"Oh my. Look at his handwriting, here," Brian said, touching one page of the book carefully, reverently. "Yes, I think I remember Freddie writing Lily of the Valley, you know. I think that was the song. It must have been," Brian said, still looking at the notebook. "That beautiful thing. How did it go? 'Tell the king of Rhye he's lost his throne'? And I remember thinking about the lyrics and thinking that he was talking about not wanting to try to fit into the mould of, you know, wife and kids and things. But I don't know if I thought about it more than that, or that he wrote more about it. Oh, right, I'm forgetting the whole thing with the path again, aren't I? Having to walk the path, like he used to say. The path of Nevermore, like the song, wasn't it?"

Roger nodded, with his heart in his throat. He looked at Brian turning the pages of the book, coming nearer and nearer to that particular story. He both hoped Brian would read it, and that he wouldn't. He swallowed.

Brian lifted the book up in his hand, looking at a page more closely. "Yeah, I think this is it, the story I was thinking about. This is the one I remember. Fancy finding it here."

Roger dreaded what he was going to say next.

"How the fairy king was betrayed and had to flee his kingdom."

Roger breathed a sigh of relief.

"Now that you reminded me, you know, I recall that I did think about this story quite a bit, back in the day. Everything's about trust, isn't it? And that was so important to Freddie, always. It was so terrible really," Brian said. "All those people who really weren't worthy of his trust, at the end of the day?"

Roger made a non-committal noise.

"Yeah... should we move, Rog? I think they might need the room for something else," Brian said, glancing around him. A young man in an expensive-looking tie was standing at the door, looking like he had been sent to shoo them out of the meeting room, only he didn't dare to interrupt the two rock stars. 

They gathered up their belongings and smiled at the assistant, who looked completely flustered by the attention. There was a café downstairs; perhaps not a place where either of them would normally have chosen to spend any time, but Brian was still holding on to the notebook, reading while he was walking, and Roger didn't want Freddie's pages exposed to the rain.

*

_The counsellor to the fairy king of Rhye was a man who did not make friends easily. He was slow to trust people, and shy around strangers. He had come to the court of Rhye as a young man, and had become fascinated by the fairy king from the moment he saw him. Everyone spoke about his beauty (and the counsellor agreed with those who thought the king the most beautiful person they had ever seen), but what truly captivated the counsellor was the king's easy way with people. He was relaxed and comfortable in company, always finding a suitable topic of discussion with everyone. It was impossible to not feel at ease with him, despite his exalted station, lofty reputation, and good looks. It was only later, when he became more closely acquainted with the king, that the counsellor realised that the fairy king was very much aware of the impact he had on people, and cleverly used it to his advantage from time to time._

_In contrast to the counsellor, the king trusted people easily and deeply. Sometimes a little too much, and a little too quickly, the counsellor privately thought, but it was not his place to judge, and it wasn't as though he didn't revel in the king's trust in him in his turn._

_In truth, the counsellor was in love with his king. He couldn't have told you when he had fallen in love or why, but he knew that he could no more not love the king than he could not breathe._

_For a long time, he did not speak of what he felt to the king. He simply did his work as well as he could: liaising with the neighbouring nations, conducting negotiations with the dragons, and even trying, in vain, to broker a peace deal with the ogres. The counsellor tried to anticipate the king's every wish, and to always be there when he was needed. It was both a torture and a great happiness to him, being at the same time so close to and so far removed from the person he loved more than life itself. The king was polite and friendly with him, but no more so than with any others of his staff._

_He saw the king's lovers, too, coming and going, sometimes spending the night in his chambers. One after the other, they stayed a while, and were replaced by others in time. He tried very hard to tell himself that this, too, was none of his concern._

_Then, one day, the humans came, invading the kingdom. They spread destruction over the land, wreaking havoc on their defences, leaving the fairy circle ring open wide. The situation seemed hopeless. But that was when one of the fairy king's most trusted advisors came up with a plan. The advisor was a sometime lover of the king, an extremely handsome man known only by his title, The Messenger. His plan was audacious and daring, and it appealed greatly to the king. The counsellor looked on from the side, unhappy and doubtful, but unable to say anything for fear of being branded a coward, and of falling in disfavour._

_In the event, the counsellor's reservations were proven true. The Messenger, perhaps eaten by jealousy (he was, after all, not the only one that the king chose to love, even though the two of them had been very close for unusually long), perhaps for another reason altogether, had betrayed them. The plan was a set-up, a ruse, and the humans were lying in ambush, waiting for them with their cruel knives. And they were very nearly successful._

_The king was severely wounded, and only very narrowly escaped death. At the last possible moment, the counsellor fought his way through the attackers and stepped in front of the king. He managed to deflect the assassin's long blade, but took a deep hit to the shoulder himself instead. _

_In the pandemonium that followed, the king, still bleeding from his own wounds, half dragged, half carried the counsellor into the safety of a passageway that few knew about. It was clear that the humans were going to overrun the palace, and that they would have to flee if they were to stay alive. However they would manage it, the counsellor didn't know, but he trusted his king. They would find a way._

_"I can't believe that he would do that," the king said, his voice only a broken whisper. He sat down in the passage, next to the counsellor. "I thought he loved me. He said that he did. How could he do that?"_

_The counsellor leaned on the stone wall of the corridor, exhausted, his wound throbbing. The stone shimmered and shone, responding to the voice of the king. The counsellor was fascinated by it, even though the waves of pain were threatening to overwhelm him._

_"But you," the king said, turning to the counsellor. "You saved me. You didn't have to, and you almost died for me."_

_"I'd give my life willingly for you," the counsellor said, on the verge of fainting from the pain, but still awfully, terribly happy to be alone with his king. Relieved, too, that they were both still, for the moment, alive._

_"Do you mean that?" the king asked, his gaze suddenly sharp._

_"Of course I do," he said, finally allowing himself to look directly at the king that he had loved for so long. "I would do anything for you, my king."_

_"Can I trust you?" the king asked, close enough to the counsellor that he could feel his breath on his cheek._

_The counsellor could not speak. He could just summon enough willpower to nod._

_"I think I will. Even though I've just been betrayed. But I have faith in you," he said, with a small smile. The counsellor's head was swimming with more than just pain. _

_"We need to escape from the city," the king said, and the stone wall shimmered brighter behind him. "I have an idea, but it's something that I shouldn't be showing to anyone. I'll be breaking very many rules if I tell you. Can I trust you to never speak of it to another soul? Will you promise me?"_

_"My king. I only live for you," the counsellor whispered. "I always have done. If I only could show you – I will be worthy of your trust – I always will –"_

_The king placed a finger on his lips. "Hush, now," he said. "You're in pain. It is not right of me to demand anything of you now. I am sorry. We will talk later. Now is not the time. If I could make it so, you know, there would be no more wars," the king continued, in a low voice. "An end to all wars and time for peace. And there is so much I would have wanted to do for my people. But here we are, and we need to get out of here alive first. We will talk and… do other things, perhaps, later," he said, his eyes hooded. _

_"Now, first, we need to disguise ourselves."_

*

Brian looked up from the notebook.

"I... we all loved him, you know that. Fred. Me and John, too. But you two were always so close. I thought," Brian said gently, "I thought that he was really talking about the two of you there. Not explicitly, perhaps, I don't mean that he wrote you into the story, not completely. But I think he was trying to sort it out in his mind. You know what I mean? I know you argued, too, Freddie and you, of course you did, who didn't? And there was that awful time in Germany. But in the end. And you know, all this does remind me. There was something I wanted to ask you, already back at the gig. All this brought it back to me."

Roger was studying the tabletop intently, grateful for the dark glasses that hid his suspiciously moist eyes. 

"About his clothes, you mean?" He asked, voice raspy. 

"Not as such, no," Brian said. "I suppose I didn't quite know how to say it back then. Not sure I know now, either, but maybe this book is part of the same thing? You see there was something about the scarf, Freddie's scarf. Something that he said. That he liked it because it was like – like something from a song? But he laughed when he said it, so I didn't think he was all that serious at the time. And I don't really remember, but I wanted to ask you. And, well. There was something, too, that he said to me, when he was, at the end, when he was so ill. Something to do with, he left something with, with John for safekeeping. Some kind of instructions, I suppose. I'm sorry I'm bringing it up again but… I have a feeling it's all connected. But I don't suppose you happen to remember?"

Roger swallowed, and shook his head. His head was spinning, bursting with memories. It was impossible to contemplate anything more just then. 

"I'm sorry. I don't think I do. Let me think about it for a while, okay?"

"Yeah, of course. I really think it was something to do with that path of his. You know? Funny, this, both of us trying to reach for something we don't quite remember. I wonder when it became like this. Everything about us is so well documented, and still it feels like there's so much I just didn't know. Or don't."

Roger nodded, in agreement once more. 

But the problem was that Brian made it all sound so easy, Roger thought, once he was back in his car and on his way home. "You loved each other." As though that was it; as though that was all that you needed. As if they hadn't misunderstood each other, he and Freddie, a hundred times a day. Talked over each other or missed the point, half of the time. And it got worse over the years. As if there hadn't been a thousand missed opportunities to say how much they meant to each other. And now, after all this time, all he had left were painful memories. Regrets. And, it seemed, a stack of handwritten, half-finished stories that all circled around love and want and devotion, but never came out and said anything directly.

He remembered Freddie telling him the story that Brian was so worked up about, the night before he had taken the photo. The other story, the one that still made him blush, that came later. But Freddie had told him the story, and then… and then, he had leaned closer, and asked him, "Can I trust you?"

"Of course you can," he had said, in an echo of the story. He had felt giddy, everything had felt unreal. And – 

He blinked. He really did not have the time to think about that now. He needed to focus on the traffic and staying on the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read, commented or left kudos! You're the best, you are ❤️
> 
> I think this chapter ended up a little garbled (too many rewrites, probably). 🤔 Do let me know if something didn't make sense, will you? Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated!


	6. Somewhere in North America, 1977 (Late Autumn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A late night, a walk down memory lane... and too many almost-spilled drinks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who's read this, commented or left kudos - thank you. So very much! 
> 
> As ever, I love to hear from you - do leave me a comment, do!

_Leave on Time_

*

The lift doors opened with a cheerful ding, and Freddie stepped out into the hotel lobby. For once, he was alone. That was unusual. He didn't seem to have any luggage with him, either. Roger concluded that he had probably left Paul and the rest of his entourage to deal with such mundane matters. All the better. Small mercies and all that, he thought, lifting the can of beer he was nursing, in the absence of anything else to do.

"Rog? Is something the matter? What's the time? Shouldn't you be on the way already?" Freddie asked, surprised. Of course, Roger shouldn't have been still hanging out at the hotel at this point. He should have hopped in a car already half an hour ago. At this point, he should have been halfway to the airport. And that's where he would have been, too, if things had gone according to plan.

"No one told you either, then?" Roger said, not without a hint of bitterness. He really would have preferred to have been on the way already, almost on the plane. Or sitting in a bar at the airport, at least. Instead, he was still stuck in this depressing no-man's-land of plastic palm trees, nicotine-stained sofas, horrible muzak and dreadful beer that he didn't even want.

"Somebody fucked up the schedules. The flight's at four-thirty, not two-thirty. The cars won't be here for another hour. Whoever thought that a flight at that hour was a good idea in the first place, I hope for their sake that I don't ever catch up with them," he griped. The beer really was god-awful. Like the muzak. Well, at least they fit together. He supposed that was something. Everything equally horrible.

"But where are the others? Where _is_ everybody?" Freddie asked, turning around on his heel, puzzled and obviously at a loss.

"Oh, they're all around here somewhere. John's just here," Roger said, gesturing behind him at a bundle of blankets, partially hidden by one of the damned fake palm trees. If you looked very carefully, the bundle might just resolve itself into a shape that could, possibly, be thought to contain a bass player. Only the tip of a sharp nose was visible, and you had to squint to see that. "He decided he might as well try to get a bit of sleep," Roger said, downing another gulp of the beer and grimacing. "Bri went for a walk. Said he wanted to see if it was clear enough to see the stars. Hope he won't get mugged while he's at it, the silly bastard," he continued, mood as sour as the beer. "I think Gerry went after him."

"Oh, heavens. Well, this is completely absurd," Freddie huffed, and dropped to take a seat next to Roger, his black-and-white zigzag-patterned scarf flying out. "Please tell me there's at least something besides beer to drink in this joint," he said.

Roger shrugged. "Good luck with that one, mate. Maybe you'll find something at the bar. If you're quick, they might still be open. I don't recommend this swill, in any case," he said, raising the can again.

Freddie looked around him, at the deserted late-night hotel lobby. He adjusted the scarf around his neck, got up again and walked to the empty reception desk.

Roger followed him with heavy-lidded eyes. Freddie was wearing his wide white trousers, looking comfortable and relaxed. His hair was shorter than it had been in earlier years, but the cut, too, looked good on him, and framed his face well. The leather jacket was flattering, and the scarf was a good touch as well. It completed the outfit. Of course, Freddie could wear just about anything and make it work, but tonight, he looked particularly beautiful. A little tired, perhaps, but otherwise not at all like it was in the middle of the night, or that they found themselves in the middle of a mess. He saw Freddie looking around again, his delicate eyebrows raised, most likely taking note of Ratty where he had fallen awkwardly asleep on a chair. One member of the crew was slumped against a table. A pile of luggage was hiding a couple of the others.

Seeing that Freddie was now looking back at him, Roger pointed in the direction of the hotel bar with one hand, nodding at the same time. Freddie wandered off, and Roger was left alone again with his thoughts and the tinny music.

It wasn't as though it wasn't a great privilege, really, to be in a situation where his biggest problem was a fucked-up schedule on a grand American tour, but it would be easier to appreciate it when they actually got away from the hotel and onto the plane.

His terrible beer was almost gone when Freddie came back, carrying two glasses of something improbably pink. He slid one in front of Roger.

"What is that thing?" Roger asked.

"Oh, it's something better than what you were trying to get down your throat just now. Go on, then," Freddie said, taking a sip of his own pink monstrosity.

"Might as well," Roger said with a sigh. "Ta, Fred."

"I was thinking, you know," Freddie said. "Since now there's no rush, apparently. I've been wanting to talk to you for a while. Do you remember, Rog..." he started. 

He looked almost... shy, perhaps? Roger perked up.

"Yeah?" Roger said.

"Do you remember the stories we used to tell? The ogres of the Mirror Mountain? The king of..."

"Sure," Roger quickly nodded. If there was a trace of a blush on his face, he was sure it was from the drink. It wasn't... bad, as such, all that pink, but it was definitely not something he would have chosen for himself. But a change from the beer anyway. Something to occupy the time with.

"I meant to write them all out someday, you know. I mean, properly. All the stories," Freddie mused. "But I never did. Well, maybe I'll go back to them one day, who knows. When I'm old and decrepit?"

Roger snorted. Freddie seemed to be in a decidedly strange mood.

"There's still space in that notebook of mine, after all. You remember that one?"

"Yeah, of course. You still got it, then?"

"Oh, of course I do. I don't have it with me now, I don't mean," he waved his hand, "but back in London. It's there. But Rog, did I ever tell you how it ended?" Freddie asked. "There was a war between the fairies and dragons and the humans, in that land. Did I tell you what happened?"

"Um. No, I don't think so. you never did," Roger said. "You told me plenty of other stories, though. About all kinds of… things. But hang on. Wasn't there another war as well? Against the ogres? And the, uh, the king getting captured, and stuff."

"Oh yes," Freddie waved his hand, "but that was something that had been going on for ages. Endless skirmishes between the fairy folk and the ogres, you know. But when the humans came, they threatened the existence of the whole land."

What a strange topic of conversation for half of a rock band, Roger reflected, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a tour, somewhere in the middle of the US. A strange topic for the two of them, too, these days, come to that. They hadn't so much as mentioned Rhye, or the stories that had once been such a natural part of their everyday existence, for years. The stories had circled in and out of their conversation for a long time; no longer. Partly it was that at some point, they had come to the conclusion that they didn't want to draw too much public attention to the recurring names (that was once they started having real public attention), but partly, too, things had changed. Obviously so for the band, but between them as well. And it wasn't as though the change was wholly for the bad, either. But in many ways, they were no longer as… as close, he and Fred, as they used to be. They couldn't be, not anymore. But despite all that, he was prepared to indulge Fred if he wanted to take a trip down memory lane. He usually was game for anything Freddie suggested, really. Still. Always. Roger looked down, frowning into the pinkness of his glass.

Freddie took another careful mouthful of his drink.

"You see," he said, "what happened was that the humans stormed the palace. The king managed to escape, with the help of his counsellor. You do remember that, and what happened after, don't you?"

Freddie was suddenly very serious, looking straight at Roger.

Roger coughed. "'Scuse me," he said. "It's this drink. Yeah, I remember." He cleared his throat again.

Freddie smiled at him. "Good," was all he said.

"The humans took over the palace, and the whole capital city. The entire firefly city was destroyed; the humans wanted every last trace of their whole way of life gone, as though it never had been. But the king organised a resistance movement, together with the dragons. And the counsellor was always by his side. Should I maybe tell you another of those stories now, what do you think? For old times' sake? It might be fun to revisit some of those things."

There was a dangerous glint to Freddie's eyes.

"Ah, no, maybe not just now," Roger said. A member of the hotel staff was passing by, giving them a curious glance. "I'm good," he continued. "Go on with what happened with the war, why don't you, Fred?"

"Well, it's your loss," Freddie shrugged. "It would have been a glorious story. Well. The ogres were the ones that finally resolved the whole thing, you see. They had at first tried to not take part in this particular war at all, but it became clear very quickly that the humans were conducting their war against everyone. Their mountain was just as much at risk as the rest of the country. So, with great reluctance, they came to a temporary agreement with the fairy king, and their forces were joined. Together, they finally prevailed, although the struggle was bitter. The humans were cast out, and the land was peaceful again. At least for a while. 

"Although," Freddie said, looking across the lobby, eyes distant, "come to think of it, I'd rather like to write one about how the humans got there in the first place. Well, anyway.

"There was a great celebration in all the land, and the city was rebuilt. The fireflies returned in time, and the fairy circle was reinforced. The ogres went back to the Mirror Mountain, and began to work on their fortifications once again.

"But throughout the celebrations and the merriment, the king's heart weighed heavy, for the ogres had driven a hard bargain. Their help came with a harsh condition: the king would have to walk the path. Otherwise they would not cooperate. Nothing else would do. That was one point where they would not negotiate. And so, not even the counsellor could lift the king's spirits now. He offered to come with him, but there was no use. Because everyone has to walk the path alone."

"Maybe someone should've told the king to think twice before agreeing to whatever anyone asked of him, already before that," came John's voice from behind them suddenly, startling them. Some dubiously pink liquid sloshed from Roger's careless hand to the table as he turned to look towards John.

"He still seems to me like the kind of guy who means well, but couldn't find his own arse with two hands if he tried. You should've written a story about how on earth he ended up on the throne in the first place, Freddie. I can't imagine anyone voting for him, anyway, charming as he might be in other ways."

Freddie laughed, a beautiful deep sound.

"And that's all my romantic imaginings dashed! I mean, my hero! My king! All brought back to earth with a resounding crash!" He put his hand over his heart, in dramatic fashion, still chuckling. "I didn't think you were awake, John, dear," he said.

"Well, I wasn't. But how you think I could go on sleeping with the two of you going on about battles and heartbreak and things at the top of your voices right next to me, I don't know."

John sat up with a grumble.

"I think I heard someone say something about a drink?"

"Here, you can have the rest of mine," Roger said, offering his glass to John with a wave. "It's not half bad, actually." The pinkness was growing on him, he thought.

"But, you know, I don't think you're right about him, John," Roger continued. "He's offering himself up for his people. That's the kind of thing that a fairy king's supposed to do, isn't it?"

Freddie had sobered up, and was looking at his drink pensively. "I do think," he said slowly. "I mean, he's the kind of person who's generous to a fault, you know. If he thinks he can do something for you, he'll do it, without a moment's thought of what it will cost him personally."

I know someone who's kind of like that, Roger thought to himself, but said nothing out loud.

"I suppose that makes him kind of naïve, or not very good at being calculating. Someone could say… Brian darling! What's that you've got there?" Freddie said, swivelling round on his chair.

They all turned their heads towards their curly-haired guitarist, who was walking slowly towards them, Freddie's scarf slung across his arm. Behind him, Roger could see Ratty stretching, still looking sleepy.

"This had been left at the bar. I thought it looked familiar," Brian said softly. "And the cars are here. We need to leave soon. Got to get there on time."

Freddie took the scarf from Brian with a smile, putting it back round his neck. 

"Thank you, dear," he said. "I would have felt terrible if I had lost this. It's a bit like it was my token, you know. Like the one that the king's going to need, if he's going to walk the path." 

Brian looked puzzled, but Freddie just laughed quietly. Roger didn't know what to make of it all. John quickly downed the rest of Roger's pink drink, turning to gather up his belongings.

"Yeah, but," Roger began, still caught up in the argument, not wanting to let his train of thought go. "I want to know what happens next. 'Cos that's still not the end of the story. Did he manage to walk the path? And what happened then? Did they ever meet again?"

"Who did?" Brian asked.

Freddie leaned his elbow on the table. 

"You tell me," he said. "What do you think happened?"

Roger looked at Freddie. They stared at each other for a long moment, neither one speaking.

"Guys, we really need to leave now, before we'll be late," Brian said, gesturing at Gerry, who was now hovering nervously nearby. "Will someone tell me what you were talking about?"

The moment was broken. Roger looked down.

"Oh, we were just reminiscing about old times," Freddie said to Brian. "The fairy king. Just remembering things. You know?"

"No," Roger said. He stood up and stepped closer to Freddie. "You know what, Freddie? I think I _will_ tell you what happened. How the king walked the path. And after. Once we get on the plane?"

"I'll look forward to it," Freddie said. It sounded like a challenge.

"Come on, you idiots," John said. "We really need to get going."

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a little weird to write because the story in the next chapter happens before this one. But you need this before that. I think. 🙃
> 
> But please do tell me if something didn't make sense! Or if there are glaring errors, of course!


	7. Kensington, London, 1972 (Winter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone's in love, and it's just possible that someone even realises it, for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the late update! Life happened, and then a rewrite happened. This used to be angst with a side helping of fluff; it ended up as just fluff with a dash of angst (and perhaps guilt)… oh well. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's stuck with this story, read it, commented, or left kudos! You're 💖

_(Nevermore)_

*

The Kensington street was humming with life, people going about their business, preoccupied, in a hurry, short on time, on a crisp January day. The winter sunlight glinted off glass windows; unwarily, Roger stepped onto a crossing, only realising what he was doing when the driver of a double-decker bus honked his horn angrily at him. 

Unlike the other pedestrians, who seemed to know what they were doing, Roger wandered irresolutely, his thoughts a jumbled mess. They'd had a gig last week, up at Bedford College in Regent's Park. Ever since, he had been feeling curiously unmoored. The gig itself had been a bit of a washout: there had been next to no people in the audience, and so they had spent most of the night at the bar. Brian had struck up a conversation with their support band, but Roger's clearest memories (and they were none of them particularly clear) were of admiring Freddie's profile where he sat beside him with a glass in his hand, and of watching his hands, marvelling at the way they moved restlessly on the counter, always in motion, never still.

He turned a corner and looked at the front door in front of him, almost surprised. He had arrived at Freddie and Mary's flat almost without noticing, still feeling rather unnerved.

"Come in, Roger," Mary said, opening the door for him, smiling vaguely. "I'm sorry it took me so long to come to the door. I completely lost track of time. Lost in my own thoughts. I'm sure Freddie's waiting for you already."

"Thanks, Mary," Roger said, looking at her, a little puzzled by her flood of words. He put his coat up and toed his shoes off, knowing that Freddie preferred to be barefoot indoors. Someone was doodling on the piano. So that's where Freddie was.

Unsurprising, really, since they had agreed to meet to go over a couple of Freddie's new songs. Roger swallowed around a lump in his throat. He had a sudden, ridiculous urge to turn around and walk right out again, and tell Freddie that he should really be talking with Brian rather than him about songs anyway, and that he didn't think he had anything to add to the conversation, but maybe another day...?

Freddie looked up at him from where he was seated at the piano, left hand still moving on the keyboard, scribbling something down on a piece of paper with his right. The green notebook was laying on top of the piano, open to a halfway filled page. The weak winter sun was still out, and the light came in through the window, giving Freddie's hair an unexpected golden edge. Roger was arrested by the sight, all thoughts of leaving temporarily forgotten.

"Well, hello there, dear," Freddie said, turning his head. Now it looked like his entire head was outlined by the same golden sunlight, giving him what almost looked like a halo. "I was just working on this thing... what's the matter, Rog?"

Before he had the time to say anything, Freddie had got up from the piano bench and walked to him. He put a hand around his shoulder, steering him further into the room.

"You look like you're going to bolt," he said. "Come on. Come talk to me instead. Come now, Roger."

Freddie led him to the piano, dragging a chair from beside the table and pushing him to sit into it, before sitting back on the bench himself.

"Look here, Roger. I was thinking about this thing," Freddie said. "Listen to this. I hope it's going to be a song. It could have this as a pattern, as a background, on the piano. What would you think if it like this?"

Freddie played. F major, passing to D minor, further down to C major and B flat major and then back to F major again; a simple downward bass progression, a frame to build a ballad on, perhaps. But then Freddie started humming a melody on top of it, on top of the same progression, quietly at first, but quickly getting more and more into it. It lifted the song, and it became… something else entirely. A beautiful piece of music. Incredible.

Freddie paused. "There's something missing there," he said. "But then, I was thinking…"

B flat major, F major, again, but in quicker succession.

"Why did you have to leave me, why did you deceive me," Freddie sang, coming to a halt. "You think?" he asked. "It's not finished yet, of course. I don't quite know how to continue it, really. But how does it sound?"

Roger blinked. It took him a while to find his voice.

"Yeah," he said, and then cleared his throat. "It sounds great. It does. Like you know where you're going with it. Really good. Have you played it to the others yet?"

"No, no, not yet," Freddie answered, going back to his pattern, trying it out in different keys. D major, E flat major… "No, I think not, darling. The F major just seems to work. It just gets a bit high. I'll have to think about how I'm going to sing it. But thank you… Look, will it sound odd if I… if I just make it a really brutally simple sequence here? G major and C, and then hop right over to A major like nothing happened, and then…?"

He played. Roger nodded along.

"Yeah, sounds all right, Fred," he said. "Keeps it interesting. Keep that in, definitely."

"I don't even know what it's called yet," Freddie said. His hands stilled on the keys, and he looked at Roger. Then he reached up, and picked up the notebook.

"Come on, then. We've had some music. How about a story instead? There's one I'd like you to listen to."

"I thought we were doing songs," Roger croaked, still unsettled by the melody, by his circling thoughts, and by having Freddie so close to him.

"Can we do that later?" Freddie asked. "Really, Roger. You look like you'd need something else to think about than whatever it is that's going on in your head. You're not concentrating, dear."

Well, that was probably a fair assessment. Roger trailed after Freddie, sitting down on the sofa and looking around himself, trying to finally gather his scrambled thoughts. 

The whole flat was rather cramped, and that was putting it politely. Everything in it was still beautifully arranged. The colours were pleasing together, and if the carpet was threadbare, it didn't take away from its charm. The sofa, too, was comfortable despite being a little battered.

Freddie sat silently for a moment, and then he started to speak.

"You know," he said. "About those stories of mine. All this time, I've always said that Rhye was a peaceful place. But all my stories seem to be about wars and battles and people being at odds with each other, so that doesn't sound quite right, does it? Oh, I know, I should just rewrite that part about peace, I think. But it's in all of them. But there you are, you know. I need drama, darling," he said, with a laugh that sounded slightly bashful. "I just can't have everyone living quietly, where's the fun of that? Or the story in that? But I'm not sure wars were what I wanted to write about either. Oh, it's too late now, I suppose."

"Too late for what?" Mary asked, padding into the room, perhaps wondering why it had gone so quiet all of a sudden. 

"Oh, just," Freddie said, unhelpfully, waving his hand. "You know. Generally."

"I'm not sure I follow," Mary said. "Well, anyway. I just came in to say I think I'll head off to work now. I'll maybe go out later with some of the girls. Will you be okay?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Freddie said. "Have a good day, dear."

"Don't wait up," Mary said, smiling at Roger again before turning away. They heard the front door closing a few moments later.

There was a moment of silence. Just enough time for Roger's thoughts to circle around to wonder at how much there actually was that they didn't talk about, ever. For all that they all spent so much time together, not just playing, but hanging out, laughing, drinking, discussing anything and everything – some things just were never mentioned. It was easier that way. By now, it had become a habit. Such as never getting to the bottom of what it was, exactly, that there was between Roger and Freddie. Not that he was sure of what it was himself, either.

Sometimes Roger thought that Mary knew. At the very least, she must have suspected something. But she didn't say anything either; and so it went. Roger knew that it would probably be a good idea to hash it out properly with Freddie at some point, but he never quite managed to find the words, or figure out the right moment to say them. And he wasn't sure where such a discussion would lead. After all, it wasn't as though there could ever be anything… well, anything. Whatever it would be. For them. And this way, maybe it was easier to pretend. If it was never spoken about, maybe it didn't exist at all?

He sighed. Maybe today wasn't the day for that conversation either? It would probably keep. He looked at Freddie, mesmerised, once again, by his beautiful hands where he was writing something down in the notebook. There were a lot of underlined and crossed over words on the page, and very many exclamation points. And now that Roger was paying attention, he saw that actually Freddie wasn't writing; he was drawing, and what looked like the head of a – was that a dragon? – was taking shape on the page.

"Well," Freddie said, taking one last look at the page, turning his head critically, and pursing his lips. He looked at Roger. "What was I saying? You know, at least this story isn't going to be about anyone fighting anyone else. Possibly people fighting themselves, but that's a bit of a different thing, isn't it? The sort of thing that everyone does all the time, don't you think?"

Roger hummed in answer. He was distracted by a stray lock of hair that kept falling on Freddie's face while he talked. Freddie kept trying to push it back behind his ear, but it was persistent. Here it was back again, a dark, inky brushstroke along his cheekbone. 

"This is a quieter story. It's a bit of a ghost story, really, I think," Freddie said, dragging his hand through his hair once more. "You ready, darling? Settle down. Are you good like that? Ready to listen?"

"Of course, Fred," Roger said, amused by his fussing.

"Yes? Okay, then. Here goes. Just listen, now.

"The kingdom of Rhye was a pleasant land. Snow-capped mountains on the border gave way first to green valleys, and then to the beautiful Seven Seas in the middle of the country. There were lush forests as well as a starker but still verdant hill country. that was where the dragons lived, among the hills. The capital city, where the king held court, was built on the shore of one of the Seas. But you knew that already," Freddie said, with a sideways glance at Roger. 

"Now, listen to this. But there was one part of the kingdom that was different. The people living in the city and in the villages of the surrounding countryside spoke only in whispers about it. This part of Rhye was barren. Nothing grew there. There was hardly any rain, the ground was hard and dry. Even in the summer, when the days were sunny and the wind was warm and gentle, if you found yourself in this part of the kingdom, you would be shivering with cold and hoping desperately to be somewhere else.

"There was a road running through this barren land." Freddie paused. "No, no," he said, picking up his pen and looking at the notebook page. "That's not right. It can't be a road, that's far too grand a name for it. More like a winding trail that was barely there, in places. A path, more likely; yes, that's it. The path of Nevermore, that's what it was called.

"If you were travelling in the land of Rhye and would ask people where the path through the wilderness led, you would not get an answer. People would turn away from you, muttering to themselves about uncouth strangers with no manners. People were afraid, and it wasn't the done thing. You simply did not talk about the path. It's possible that the fairy king knew more about the path than he let on, but he would not discuss it with you. He would politely lead the conversation to another topic, and make sure you forgot about it.

"Perhaps the road only led to the mountains and onwards, past the lands of the ogres, and to the kingdom of the winged horses on the other side. And perhaps it led somewhere else altogether. It was certainly true that the people of Rhye were in the habit of saying that someone had 'walked the path' when if they had died young; particularly if they had died of a broken heart. Or if someone close to them had died and they were trapped in the sorrow, if they were unable to let go of it.

"No one wanted to have to walk the path of Nevermore."

Roger was fascinated. The sound of Freddie's voice, its rise and fall, the way Freddie became completely absorbed in telling his story; he didn't want it to stop. He snuggled a little closer to Freddie, leaning against his side.

"So you're saying that it's an actual place, that it's a path that leads somewhere, but it's also a metaphor that they use for heartbreak?" he asked.

Freddie frowned, looking down at his book again. "I suppose so, yes, why not. But you see, it's a bit more serious than that. And stranger, too. Listen, dear. You see, it was also a punishment. If you'd committed a crime, no, wait, that can't be it. Hold on. I think if you'd committed treason, then you could be sent to walk the path. Yes. It wasn't exile and it wasn't a death sentence, not exactly. Because in theory you could come back from there. But it was rare.

"There were stories about that, too, of course. But they were the kind that the people of Rhye told each other in hushed whispers, late at night, or by a fire. They definitely didn't tell them to strangers. They were stories about how to survive on the path, and what might happen if you did. 

"One thing that they said quite often in the stories was that you needed a token if you walked the path, and if you wanted to survive. Something that was _you_."

"What do you mean by that?" Roger asked.

"Something that was important to you. Something that you liked very much, something that was only yours. A funeral custom in Rhye was to burn something that was special to the deceased with them. That way it would always stay with them. That kind of thing, that was what might be your token."

"Burn?" Roger asked, startled.

"Yes, yes," Freddie said. "But that's not all that important. They burned their dead. Anyway.

"The strangest stories told of magicians who had walked the path and what had happened to them. The silver dragon was one of them. She was said to have walked the path, in order to save the black dragon. There was nobody more important to her in the whole world. The black dragon had fallen ill, and the silver had said to her that she would do anything, anything at all, to save her. The black dragon had answered that not even walking the path was a sure way of helping. But the silver had only said that she was willing to try, and that it was a risk worth taking. Anything for her. 

"And the stories said that she did manage to walk the path, and to come back. What her token was, no one could tell. But it must have been something particularly fitting. Because when she did return, they said that she had become immeasurably powerful. The dragons keep their own counsel, in this as in other matters, and no one but they could tell you what really happened, but it was certainly true that the black dragon was soon restored to health again, after the silver had returned."

Freddie looked up at Roger. His eyes looked very dark. "Are you following? Is that too far out?"

"No, no. That's really… yeah. So you could choose to walk it, too?"

"Yes, I think so. And sometimes people did. For various reasons. Sometimes they had no other choice. But maybe it's better to choose to do something like that yourself than to be forced to do it, or to be sent there? To choose heartbreak willingly? Do you think?"

Roger shifted, uneasily. "Well, I don't know, really. It would depend, wouldn't it? Listen, Fred, it's been great catching up, but I think I really should maybe get going, and – "

"Really? Has it been that long already? I'm sorry. I didn't realise," Freddie said.

"Yeah. I should probably head out," Roger said, looking around him. He was sure there was _somewhere_ that he had promised to be that day. 

"Please, Rog," Freddie said. "Don't go. Don't leave me alone. I mean. Don't send me to the path," Freddie said. 

Roger turned to him with a smile. It quickly faded when he studied the look on Freddie's face: he was completely serious, and there was no hint of amusement in his eyes. He meant it, Roger realised. When Freddie said nothing more, just continued to look at him, it finally hit him what Freddie was saying. The seriousness of what he was asking.

"Of course I won't leave you," Roger whispered. "You know that. I wouldn't. But you know I can't, I can't – "

Freddie carefully lifted one hand, putting it hesitantly on his cheek, only just touching. His fingertips ghosted over Roger's cheekbone. "I know," he said. "And that's not what I meant. And I can't, either. But just for now. Please don't go. Please."

Roger took a breath. His thoughts were getting no clearer; if anything, his whole head seemed to be in a fog. He wasn't thinking; he couldn't think. He could only nod. Freddie leaned closer, and Roger closed his eyes. After what seemed like an age, he felt soft lips touch his. He reached up his own hand to Freddie's face, skimming over his jaw to come to a rest in his hair. 

"And about time, too," he breathed. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know! I'm sorry! I had to leave it there! *hides* Come yell at me in the comments about it!
> 
> I also have a feeling I could just as well have written the first half of the chapter as sheet music. I got a bit carried away…


	8. Shepherd's Bush, London, 1986 (Winter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mixing, remembering, and storytelling. And plenty of unspoken feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to everyone who's read, commented or left kudos on this! ❤️
> 
> Sorry for the late update - life interferes. The last chapter is in the works...
> 
> This chapter wouldn't be complete without thanks to the fantastic nastally. It sort of acquired a missing scene of sorts a couple of weeks ago, thanks to a comment she made. Who knows, I might even write it one day... oh, you'll know it when you come to it.

_(Princes of the Universe)_

*

Roger blinked in the fluorescent lights of the studio. No matter how much time he spent in here (or in any of the studios they had used over the years. Whichever of them, really), he was never able to get used to their artificial brightness. It seemed like a studio without them was a contradiction in terms. With a small sigh, he put his sunglasses back on. Not that he didn't actually see better with them, but one of the nose pads of this particular pair was a bit out of joint, and the chafing was maddening. Well, he supposed he could live with a little discomfort.

Now better able to face the task ahead of him (at least the lights didn't hurt his eyes anymore, and the nose wasn't too bad yet), he looked back down at the mixing console. His thoughts kept wandering. How he wished John was there. His presence often helped him focus, and besides, he'd wanted to ask him what he thought about a sound anyway. If he only could remember which one it was. But John had been called away, to deal with a small family crisis of some sort. He'd waved away all concern, mumbling something about it being just one of these things, saying he'd be back as soon as he could.

Roger completely understood all of that, even though it had left the rest of them floundering a little aimlessly just now. Usually it was fine if one or more of them was missing. Everyone would have just got on doodling with their own stuff, but just now, John's absence was felt rather keenly. For some reason, there was something a little different about this album. But mostly, if he were honest, Roger was just relieved that there didn't seem to be any immediately looming emergencies in his own family at the moment. The situation with Dom, though... yeah, better not go there. Get back to the mix, that was a much better idea. Now what had he been thinking about? Something about the balance of that track...?

Behind him, Brian was leaning on a stool at the back of the room, right where John usually was perched with his bass. Brian was filing the nails of his right hand and talking idly with their recording engineer, about effects pedals, it sounded like. They weren't being very productive, then, either.

Freddie was sitting at the other end of the room, a pile of papers in front of him on a small table. He sighed, much more loudly than Roger had done. Roger looked up, raising a questioning eyebrow (just visible above his dark glasses) in Freddie's direction.

"I don't know," he started, looking curiously unsure. "Rog, can you come over here and look at this for a moment? Is it okay if this line stays in?"

Roger got up – after all, he had been mostly just absently staring at the controls (maybe the drums could have been a tiny bit higher in the mix after all?) – and abandoned the desk for a while. Happy for something concrete to think about, he walked over, stepping carefully over a stack of coiled cables. He took off his shades and peered over Freddie's shoulder, squinting a little, at what turned out to be a handwritten sheet of lyrics. There were plenty of crossed over lines and words, and the left-hand side of the paper had an elaborately curlicued border, evidence of the lyric-writer having got bored at some point. Still, one sequence stood out.

"That one?" Roger pointed. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well," Freddie said. He was temporising, clearly having some trouble saying what the problem was.  
"I don't know, really. I think it works well. But don't you see, darling? It's a bit like, like that story you used to tell me, way back. Is it too much?"

Roger shrugged.

"It's fine, Freddie," he said. "I let you muck about with _Magic_, too, didn't I? I always let you fool around with all of my songs, really. Why wouldn't it be okay if you used those lines?"

"Well, yes, I know you do let me do that, but… this is different, Roger. I wouldn't have put this in at all, but it seemed to fit so well. And, you know, it seemed like a nice nod to... but I don't know if you... Don't you remember? 'Got your world in my hand. I'm here for your love and I'll make my stand' – don't you remember how that used to continue? What happened after that?" He looked down then, shuffling the pile of papers around in front of him. He seemed even more unsure now, almost… embarrassed. Could it be? It couldn't, could it? The Freddie he had first come to know, so many years ago, perhaps would have been – but now?

Roger looked at the lyrics again, and then back at Freddie, blinking.

"No. Well, I mean, I do remember," Roger said, when Freddie's eyes widened and he looked flustered, about to say something. Roger felt his ears grow warm, and he was sure he was flushing a little now (but only a very little) under Freddie's gaze. It didn't help that now he was actually thinking of the story that those words had once been part of, or something that was very close to them, anyway. A long while ago.  
The silence was growing uncomfortable.

"But, see, you've only used those couple of phrases," Roger hastily continued, hoping his face had returned to its normal shade. "It sounds like a pretty general statement, doesn't it? It doesn't sound like there's any kind of… other meaning to it," he said, a little weakly.

"What are you talking about?" Brian asked from behind them. It seemed that even the topic of guitar gadgetry had been exhausted for the moment. "What other meaning?"

"Oh, nothing," Roger said. "And that's my point, right? It's fine. It's just words."

There was a certain look in Freddie's eye that made Roger dread what he was going to say next. 

"Well, I'm not sure it was nothing. We were just discussing the lyrics to this song, here" he said to Brian. "And I'm sort of reminded of something you said to me once, Roger. Maybe Brian would like to hear about that? You remember? That one time on a plane in America? What was it again, Rog? What was it called? The Mile High…?"

"Shut up, Fred," Roger said, getting up and putting his dark glasses back on. Brian looked at him a little questioningly, but seemed to be content to leave it be. Still, you could always rely on Freddie to make sure his face ended up red as a tomato at some point in the day. Not just a bit of a blush that could be easily blamed on whatever was handy, either. He considered himself rather unflappable, but trust Freddie to make jokes about... well. That one time.

* 

Later on, they were sitting companionably together on a break, each on one side of a table, both with a cup of tea in front of them. All embarrassment had been temporarily forgotten. John still hadn't made an appearance. Brian had excused himself, saying he had some errands to run, but Roger and Freddie had decided to stay on for a bit.

"Will you tell me that story again?" Freddie asked. "That one that I nicked the lyrics from? About the king walking the path and coming back and… making a stand? You know, just for old times' sake?"

Roger wondered what had brought this on, but decided not to question Freddie too closely.

"I don't know if I remember it all just the way I told it back then," he said instead. "I'm sure you probably remember it better than I do, anyway. All the dragons and, well, all that."

"It doesn't matter. I'd like to hear a new version as well. Will you?"

"Well, okay," Roger said with a shrug, letting Freddie have his way as usual. "Christ, Freddie, it's been a while since I've thought about this. Just tell me if I get it wrong, would you?"

He had made up the story for Freddie, way back on one of their American tours. On the one hand, it felt like half an age ago; on the other, it might just as well have been yesterday. But it had been a while, anyway, since he had thought about their little collection of fantasy tales. Then again, with the film they were supposed to be writing all these songs for, maybe this was as good a time as any to remember the Fairy King of Rhye.

Roger took a mouthful of tea, to buy himself some time to think.

"It was time," he began. "It couldn't be put off any longer. The king was going to walk on the path of Nevermore, and he needed to leave now. There was a delegation of ogres that had come to see him off. To make sure he did go, more likely. The king was angry when he thought about how little trust they had in him. Like he wouldn't honour his promises! But he could see their point, and so he said nothing.

"Now he stood in front of his counsellor. It was a difficult moment for both of them. The king had to speak. He couldn't stand there with the counsellor looking at him like his world was coming to an end. 'I will come back,' he said. 'Trust me. Trust in that I will come back to you one day. Don't lose hope. But will you wait for me? Will you promise me you won't forget me?'

"The counsellor nodded and put his hands over his mouth. He couldn't speak. He could only hope that the king would know what he meant anyway.

"The king set out on the path. At first, it wasn't too bad. A bit cold, maybe, and he kept feeling like someone was watching him. But the further he got, the more difficult it was to walk on. The barren land gave way to desert proper. The sun beat down on sand, and the king. 

"Everything started to feel unreal, and he wondered if he wasn't hallucinating. It was as though he was walking along a seashore, with the waves crashing onto the sand with great force. Then the moon shone down on him. And then it seemed he was back in the desert. But he was still cold.

"Despair set in and he felt that he couldn't go on. 'Well, now I've really gone and fucked things up,' the king thought."

Freddie snorted a laugh at that. "Oh, please, Rog," he said. "I'm sure that's not what he said, is it?"

Roger ruffled his hair with one hand and smiled, a little ruefully. "Well," he said. "I suppose that's a bit out of character. But that was what he thought anyway. Okay, I'll rephrase it. Here goes.

"He felt that he couldn't go on. Despair filled his whole heart, and he cursed the day he was born," he said. "Too much?" he asked.

Freddie made a non-committal sound and smiled. "Oh, go on," he said.

"Right. He felt like all his decisions had been wrong, and nothing would ever be right again. And it was all his fault. Then his fingers happened on his token: on a silver chain around his neck, there was a key. It was the key to a small summerhouse on the edge of the Firefly City, with a view of the shining sea on the edge of the capital. He had spent many happy hours there, often in the company of the counsellor. Planning the future and outlining policies, or just leisurely talking over a glass of wine. 

"Touching the key, he felt better all of a sudden. It was like a cool drink after a long day, or a warm summer's breeze, and he knew then that he could go on walking on the path.

"The king trudged on. For a while everything was fine, and the king thought that this wasn't so bad after all. But then, just when he was wondering how long the path actually was, a great wave of despair and horror broke over him. Whatever it was that had been watching him was going to descend on him any moment now, he knew that. He wondered if it would be very painful to die here. He felt like he couldn't breathe, and he took hold of the collar of his shirt in desperation, trying to get some more air in. That was when his fingers touched the key around his neck again, and it was as though a fog in front of his eyes had been lifted. He seemed to see the small summerhouse for a moment, and he saw the counsellor, too, sitting there, laughing, at ease. The king came to himself, relieved: there was no one there, no one out to get him. He was on the path, alone in the desert. He knew that he would be able to go on again.

"The king took a deep breath. It couldn't be a coincidence, now could it? Each time, it felt like something was trying to prevent him from going on, but the key, and the happy memories it brought back to him, countered it. His token acted as a foil for it, whatever it was. His fingers still on the key, he thought of the counsellor now. He had to survive the path and get back to him. He had promised, after all. He trusted in him, and he would do anything it would take. Love was stronger than anything the path could throw at him. 

"He thought about the warmth in the counsellor's dark eyes, and of the way they sparkled when he smiled. The way he had of hiding his smile, looking self-conscious about it. The arch of his fine eyebrows, the high cheekbones, and the sound of his laughter. His dark hair that always curled a little, no matter what he did. The cock of his hip when he faced down a difficult political adversary, or the slant of his slender shoulders when he straightened his back and looked at his opponent head-on. The lovely lines of his arms and his back. And his voice; the king loved listening to his voice. It had a warmth to it, much like the counsellor himself.

"And he remembered", Roger had to look down, to make sure his eyes didn't stray to Freddie, "he remembered running his fingers gently along the counsellor's jaw, feeling the slight stubble under his fingertips. And holding him close, revelling in his warmth. But most of all, he recalled the joy of just being with him, talking with him, sharing thoughts, ideas and stories with a like mind.

"Keeping thoughts of the counsellor firmly in his mind, the king set out one last time. For a long time, he walked on, until slowly, he felt the same horror and despair creeping up on him again. He was feeling very cold, and his teeth were chattering. In a desperate attempt to do something, the king started humming a song. Weakly, under his breath, at first. It was a song that they had often sung together with the counsellor. One of their favourites. And that did it, finally: when he came to the last chorus, it was as though a spell was broken. 

"The king suddenly found himself standing in a mountain pass. The desert had vanished, as though it had never been. The king looked up, breathing in deeply in the mountain air, cool and refreshing. Suddenly, he saw small shapes against the sky: dragons, wheeling overhead. He gasped, partly in relief, and partly in awe. Somehow he had made it. He was back on the outskirts of Rhye; from here, it was possible to return to his kingdom. He didn't know what had happened while he had been away, or even how long he had been gone, or what his people would think of him now. But he would come back. He would claim back both his throne and the counsellor's love. Make his stand, take his destiny in his own hands."

Roger paused and leaned back. It was quiet around them. In the next room, a telephone was ringing. There were footsteps; someone going to answer the phone, most likely. Freddie sighed and got up, smoothing his jeans and rubbing a hand over his moustache. Roger looked down, at the table, at the dregs of the tea, long gone cold.

"Roger," Freddie said. "Thank you for that. Really."

Roger waved his thanks away.

"No, I mean it. I think I need to head off now. Back tomorrow, eh? Will you tell me the very end of it another time?"

"Sure, Freddie. Anytime," Roger said, looking at him, forcing a small smile on his face.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Do leave me a comment! 🙂
> 
> Even though this chapter mostly is about Princes of the Universe, because of the lyrics, you could probably say that there are bits and pieces from a couple of other songs running through this as well...


	9. South Bank, London, 2019 (Christmas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting, many memories, and perhaps something more…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, so much, everyone who's read and commented – and all of you who have left kudos! 💖
> 
> I just want to say once more that this is, of course, all just my imagination. Only that. Nothing more. I have no idea about the actual whereabouts of Freddie's scarf, or insight into anyone's songwriting process, or their opinions about songs. 
> 
> And that this is a sad chapter; perhaps no more than some of the earlier ones, but I suppose the Heartbreak tag applies to this one the most. I don't think it's only sad, though; but proceed with some caution, anyway.

_(No One But You)_

*

Roger put his phone away, shaken. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. Don't rush it. It had taken him a long time to work up the nerve to dial the number, unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. There was no need to hurry now.

_Of course you can have the scarf if you want it. Yes, of course I have it. No, it's not a problem. Yes, I would tell you if it was. I don't exactly make a habit of wearing it or anything,_ John had said, his manner as dry as ever. Some things never changed. 

_But as for the rest, Roger, I haven't got any wise words for you. Not now, I never did have. Besides, I think that the two of you, Brian and you, idiots that you are, already put most of it into that whiny song, whenever that was. '97? 'A hand above the water', and all that. And just as an aside, I still don't agree it was a good idea to hike up the pitch when you were mixing it. But you've got it all there already. You know as much as I do._

John had never been one for beating around the bush. Not once he knew you, at least. Once you got him to talk, you could rely on him. He wasn't one for comfort, either; but he would give you a straight answer, and not mince his words.

"It was Brian's song," he had protested half-heartedly.

He could see John's eyeroll as clearly as if he were standing right next to him.

*

The details of their meeting had been John's idea, of course. He had told Roger to come to the lobby of the National Theatre, of all places. He had said that no one would expect to see them there, that they'd go unnoticed. And of course he had been right. The lobby was absolutely filled with people, a dozen languages spoken all at once. Standing there among the tourists and the holiday-makers, Roger felt a little silly, and a tiny, tiny bit like a secret agent, on his way to a secret meeting to exchange information. "For your eyes only," he hummed under his breath, very quietly, and then shook his head, telling himself sternly to stop being stupid.

John knew how to do these things, as ever: in the hustle and bustle of the eager tourist crowd, they were inconspicuous in all their conspicuousness. Just two elderly chaps meeting. Exchanging Christmas gifts, perhaps. Maybe they were, at that, Roger thought. But the main thing was that no one wondered about them, and no one much cared. Most of the people around them were preoccupied with their own Christmas shopping, or reaching one of the cafés or restaurants, intent on a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine.

"The letter's in there, inside the scarf," John said, curtly, handing him a small and soft, black-and-white, very familiar-looking bundle.

"But why did he go to all this trouble to –" Roger started, and then bit his lip. Handing over some old stuff was one thing; talking about it was a breach of the unspoken rules between them. That they'd got this far was a lot. He'd better not push any further.

*

A while later, Roger was alone again, leaning on the railing, staring unseeing at the grey-green water of the Thames, the bridges on both sides, at the dome of St Paul's in the distance.

It was a long time since he had been here last. It was all very clean and pretty, very tourist-friendly... and it had all changed so very much from what it was, back in those days when they had sat in pubs and in parks and in cramped, messy flats with Freddie, with all their dreams of becoming rock stars. And making up stories about dragons and kings, so young and so in love (even though the actual words were never spoken out loud).

He had put the scarf and the letter in the inside pocket of his coat, and he could feel them, a warm pressure against his chest. Right next to the green notebook that he still couldn't let go of.

He remembered a time when he could always make John laugh, no matter what the situation. Not that there was any danger of him even cracking a smile at anything he said now.

Why had Brian written all of that into that song, anyway? He hadn't questioned him at the time – even though he remembered changing some of the lyrics. But which ones, and for whatever reason, he couldn't now say. He definitely hadn't thought of their old stories even once, but clearly he should have. He _knew_ the words were from them. Just as John had, apparently, even though he hadn't said anything. As usual. 

But what he did remember, now, was Freddie giving him the green notebook. In too much detail, if anything. It had been a rainy day in that horrible autumn of 1991. He had been to see Freddie, and they had talked of everything and nothing. He had tried his best to ignore the way that Freddie had to stop to draw a wheezing breath after every sentence, and the frailness and paleness, getting more and more marked every day.

Freddie had had the notebook next to him, on a small table. It was beautiful, an antique. Roger remembered trying to focus on the table, trying not to stare at Freddie's thin hands too much. 

"I'm not sure I remember quite everything I wanted to say to you, but I did remember this, the other day," Freddie had said. "I want you to have it. It should be with you." And he had smiled.

Roger turned his head, breathing deep and looking at the Blackfriars Bridge to his right, and the trains passing over the river, listening to the ubiquitous noise of the traffic. Trying hard to return to the present, away from that horrible day.

You don't stop loving someone just because they're dead. Just because they're not there anymore to love, or to touch. And when you have loved someone like he had loved Freddie (these days it was easy enough to admit that to himself), that someone is always a part of your life. The sorrow doesn't go away, and it doesn't get better – maybe it changes shape, but it's always there. And why would you want it any other way? Well, apart from wanting to turn back time or changing time and having that person not be dead, of course.

What he wouldn't give to hold Freddie one more time. Oh damn, how useless it was to wish for the impossible.

He thought about the boundless sorrow they had tried to channel into Brian's song. Drowning in it, indeed.

And he thought about how angry he still was at Freddie, at times. How dare he go and die. _How dare you go and leave me alone,_ he thought, and then realised how absurd he sounded.

*

Back home, he looked at the battered notebook once more. The paper was yellowed with age, and there was no hope of getting the stains out from the cover. How very old it looked; and how little time it seemed had passed.

On the page in front of him, half the handwriting was Freddie's, but half of it was his own. This one they had worked on together, heads pressed close together over the paper. Sat there in Freddie's opulent flat, they had giggled like two teenagers, even though they were anything but. And even though it had been a long time since they used to do anything like this together. They were both preoccupied with their own lives, but just for that moment, it was as though all of that had disappeared for the moment. One of Freddie's cats was sleeping on a comfortable armchair nearby.

_There had been a coup attempt in the king's absence,_ Roger read. His own words, written down on that long-ago day. _The counsellor had managed to foil it, but only just. The soldiers had been deployed, because the ogres had tried to use the situation to their own advantage. The counsellor had even had to call to the dragons for assistance._

Here Roger's spikes gave way to Freddie's expansive loops.

_The king walked along the corridor to his throne room. He could hear the two dragons talking to each other, the black dragon Eve and the silver Dawn._

Freddie had never got around to changing the names, Roger noted. He supposed it suited well enough.

_'Will there ever be a time for just the two of us?' he heard the dry voice of the silver dragon say._

_'Patience, my dear,' the melodious voice of the black dragon said. 'Don't fly too close to the sun; don't burn yourself hoping for something that cannot happen yet. They need us here.'_

_The king rounded the corner, bowing deep to the dragons in respect._

_And then he was finally face to face with his counsellor again._

_The rest of the room faded away from around them, and the king stepped closer. Everything else forgotten, all his duties set to side for the moment, he took the counsellor's face in his hands, looking into his eyes. The counsellor was surprised to see tears in the clear blue eyes of the king. Of course he had missed the king desperately, so much that it had been like a physical ache – much like the time when he had been wounded in the ambush – but never had he thought that the king would feel even some of the same pain._

_'My king,' the counsellor whispered, but whatever he had been planning to say was cut off and forgotten when the king pressed his lips to his. Their warmth was all he could feel; the king's scent (how he had missed that) was all around him, and then the touch of his tongue on his lower lip made him gasp and – _

Here Freddie's handwriting ended in an untidy smudge. Roger smiled. He remembered snatching the pen from Freddie's hand, protesting loudly and giggling all the while.

"You can't write that down, Freddie! Christ!" And then he had been struck by another giggling fit. Freddie had tried to get the pen back from him, and the whole scene had quickly deteriorated into a tickling match. The cat had stalked away from the room, clearly offended by their behaviour.

There was a final paragraph of Roger's at the bottom of the page.

_There was a great celebration at the court of the fairy king that night, but the king and the counsellor were nowhere to be found. People asked after them, wondering, but all anyone could say was that they had been seen heading towards the outskirts of town. Perhaps they had gone to the king's summerhouse, or perhaps somewhere else altogether. They were finally together, that was all that mattered._

*

Roger turned the pages of the book slowly. All those memories, all those stories. All those years. The scarf lay on the table next to the book, and he had put the letter down carefully to the right of it. He touched the scarf absent-mindedly, finger softly tracing over the black pattern. A part of him blamed himself and regretted not having searched for the book earlier, for leaving Freddie's words unread for almost thirty years. But a larger part of him knew exactly why he had done so: it had hurt too bloody much. It still did. And sometimes, you simply had to try to push some things out of your mind, just not think about them, for a while, to survive at all. 

He turned to the last page of the book, and came to a halt, frowning. He was sure he hadn't seen this before.

He stared.

_I love you, my Fairy King,_ it said, in what was unmistakably Freddie's script, all the dotted i's made into circles.

_But you knew that already, Roger. I don't know when you'll read this, but I know I won't be around when you do._

Roger closed his eyes for a while, fighting the tears. Not again.

_We had the best of times, and I wouldn't change a day of what we had. Not for anything. Not even when you were being a complete brat._

_I hope you're not still mourning me or anything silly like that. Although that would be just like you, great sap that you are. That thirty years or something equally impossible will have passed and you're still sad over me. I hope I'm wrong._

_But still, I'm writing this to you for you to read sometime in the future, so I suppose I know better than that._

_I don't want you to feel sad and I don't want you to feel like there was something that you should have said to me that you didn't have the chance to. I think we both know. I know, and you know. You always were the one, and I have been so lucky to have had you so close to me for so long._

_Read the stories, sometimes, if you like. And remember. We had a blast. Don't let yourself linger on the path. But think about the dragons, flying free, flying together._

*

_And Roger, if you want to know the very end, talk to John. He has my scarf, and he has a letter. Read what's written in it. But it might not be what you're expecting. Then again, you already know what you need to do. We wrote all these stories together – and don't try to tell me otherwise! You know better!_

With some trepidation, Roger took hold of the letter. His hands were shaking a little. He opened the folded sheet, squinting a little to make out the words clearly, and drew a shaky breath.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Do leave me a comment!
> 
> One more disclaimer: I'm not a recording engineer and my knowledge about music producing is limited. If someone has an idea about why No One But You is at that pitch, please do share – I do like the song, but the pitch (in-between, neither one thing nor the other) makes my teeth hurt. "Fiddled about in mixing" is just my best educated guess...
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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